MONDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2020

Volume 7, Number 38

EIR Daily Alert Service

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

• LaRouche’s Science of Physical Economy Is Still the Gold Standard To End Hunger and Pandemics
• China’s Media Urge, Rise Above ‘Geopolitical, Ideological Conflicts,’ Deploy Science To Fight COVID-19
• Xi Jinping Exhorts Global Cooperation Against COVID-19 Virus
• Fed Joins ECB in Moving the Goal Posts To Justify Perpetual Monetary Bailout
• Pompeo’s Africa Trip Had No Purpose But To Attack China
• Trump Slams Corrupt Justice System That Jailed ‘Thousands’ Unjustly
• Nevada Voters Defy Pundits–Sanders Wins Caucuses Decisively
• Afghanistan, U.S., and Taliban Announces Seven-Day Reduction in Violence
• Moscow Warns U.S. To Quit Exercises for Nuclear Strikes on Russia!
• German Leaders in Panic, as EU Demands Suppression of Protests

EDITORIAL

LaRouche’s Science of Physical Economy Is Still the Gold Standard To End Hunger and Pandemics

Feb. 23 (EIRNS)—With the attention of the world riveted—and rightly so—on the COVID-19 epidemic, and the danger that it could escalate into a full-fledged global pandemic, despite China’s concerted efforts to contain it, the urgent steps needed to stop the threatened locust plague now spreading across the Horn of Africa and parts of southern Asia are not being implemented, and are scarcely on the radar screen of most of the nations of the world.

This, despite the fact that the ultimate cause of both these threatened health and hunger catastrophes is the same: the half-century collapse of the physical economy and living standards of the majority of the world’s population, as a result of the British Empire’s policy of financialspeculation and looting, as Lyndon LaRouche has uniquely discussed this problem.

Were it not for the British Empire’s geopolitical policy of intentional genocide, it would be relatively easy for a concert of nations to address the immediate locust crisis in the Horn of Africa—which, after all, has been known for months. And yet the FAO has only been able to raise $22 million of the $76 million needed for the most elementary aerial spraying and other measures needed to stop the advance of the locust swarms, and save the crops whose destruction now threatens to thrust 30 million people over the precipice from hunger into starvation. Such short-term emergency measures would then open the door to more fundamental research and breakthroughs in the fields of optical biophysics, fusion power and other areas, needed to address the underlying issues of physical economy.

As Lyndon LaRouche repeatedly warned, any people which allows such treatment of Africa and other impoverished regions to continue, has lost the moral fitness to survive.

LaRouche took this up in a devastating broadside against Malthusianism, a December 1981 article headlined “The Economic Need for Increasing the Human Population,” which appeared for the first time in the Feb. 21, 2020 issue of EIR magazine:

“This pervasion of genocidal practices and advocacies by influential circles and individuals, combined with the monstrous toleration of such advocacies by the general populations, is to be viewed as a reflection of the fact that the moral condition of leading institutions and populations is today qualitatively worse than during the 1930s and 1940s. The issue before us is not merely that of preventing genocide; the toleration of [Malthusian depopulation] policies such as Global 2000 today is to be seen as conclusively symptomatic of a civilization which must be rescued from a loss of the moral fitness to survive.”

For nearly a half century, LaRouche identified the nature of this genocide policy which is now creating the threat of a new wave of global plagues and pandemics, and the required solution. In a May 7, 1985 article in EIR, entitled “The Role of Economic Science in Projecting Pandemics,” LaRouche wrote:

“The conditions for economically determined pandemics may be either the instance in which the average consumption is determined by a fall of potential relative population-density below the level of requirements for the existing population, or the special case, that the differential rates of the households’ goods ‘market-basket’ falls below the level of energy of the system for a large part of the population. We are most concerned with the effects on health, as the nutritional throughput per-capita falls below some relative biological minimum, and also the effect of collapse of sanitation and other relevant aspects of basic economic infrastructure upon the conditions of an undernourished population.

“The first assumption, that the death rates would be increased by malnutrition, requires no special inquiry in the language of economic science as such. It is the second alternative, that the undernourished population might become a breeding-culture for eruption of epidemic and pandemic disease, which requires special attention….

“It is merely necessary to estimate the rate of fall of population potential toward such threshold-levels, and to take into account the duration of such conditions historically indicated as consistent with brewing of a new upsurge of pandemics, to foresee when, how, and where a continuation of 1974 trendsin monetary and economic policy would probably generate such eruptions.”

As the petition calling on President Donald Trump to exonerate Lyndon LaRouche argues: “Because LaRouche’s policies for replacing the deadly looting of Wall Street and the City of London with a just New World Economic Order of universal, high-tech development was not implemented, hundreds of millions of people around the world remained in poverty and tens of millions perished unnecessarily. It has only been with China’s recent adoption of policies very similar to those proposed by LaRouche up to 50 years ago, that the genocide has stopped in at least large parts of the planet.”

Now, with the acquittal of President Trump on the phony impeachment case, and with his recent blasts against the miscarriages of justice in the Roger Stone, Rod Blagojevich and other cases, the time has come for Trump to finally take steps to exonerate Lyndon LaRouche and his ideas.

COLLAPSING WESTERN FINANCIAL SYSTEM

China’s Media Urge, Rise Above ‘Geopolitical, Ideological Conflicts,’ Deploy Science To Fight COVID-19

Feb. 21 (EIRNS)—In a front-page editorial yesterday, Global Times points out that in order to combat the novel coronavirus, COVID-19, the Chinese government has dropped all else in order to engage in a full-scale battle against the epidemic. China has thus far achieved remarkable results, it asserts, but while the danger of a large-scale spread of the disease across the country has been contained, there is still no certainly as to whether the disease can be quickly eradicated. No specific treatment has yet been found.

Therefore, the fight demands heightened international cooperation, Global Times argues, leaving behind “obsessing with geopolitical and ideological conflicts.” Should the virus turn into a chronic infectious disease in winter, “an epidemic outbreak in other parts of the world would be inevitable.” In this context, prejudiced attacks on China from the U.S. and other Western nations are arrogant “and very dangerous,” the semi-official daily warns. “There will be many common problems faced by mankind, and the human race will become a community with a shared future at some special moments, whether we like it or not. Human society must pay more attention to real and potential public crises….”

Xinhua yesterday also documents the ways in which China has used and developed new technology—including artificial intelligence (AI)—as it pays attention to real and potential public crises. This includes the software company Neusoft’s development of a type of remote CT equipment in just seven days, which can quickly diagnose the virus using AI computing, and reduce contact between medical workers and patients.

Robots are used to help reduce cross-infection risks, according to leading robot manufacturer Siasun. Using laser positioning, intelligence navigation and human-computer interaction, medical delivery robots can help health workers spray disinfectants and hand out medicine to patients. Xinhua also points to use of E-commerce platforms, such as fresh food retailers, fresh food delivery to home-bound individuals, or those in quarantine. Cloud-related services provide remote education and remote medical consultation, and online class services to students at home, especially where schools remained closed after the Lunar New Year holiday. WeDoctor provides online access to physicians or other medical professionals. All patients across China can access free medical consultation services online.

Xi Jinping Exhorts Global Cooperation against COVID-19 Virus

Feb. 23 (EIRNS)—In a letter thanking the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for their $100 million offer of help to China in its fight against the COVID-19 epidemic, Chinese President Xi Jinping wrote: “I support your cooperation with relevant Chinese institutions, and look forward to enhanced coordination and concerted efforts in the international community for the sake of health and well-being of all…. Since the outbreak began, I have called for confidence, unity, science-based approach and targeted response as guidelines for China’s epidemic control efforts. We have rallied the whole nation and adopted a string of unprecedented measures to contain and mitigate the epidemic and treat the sick…. We are resolute in protecting the life and health of the people of China, and of all countries around the world. We are determined to do our part to uphold global public health security.”

Xinhua reported that Xi also declared that “mankind is a community with a shared future and to prevail over a disease that threatens all, unity and cooperation is the most powerful weapon.”

Fed Joins ECB in Moving the Goal Posts To Justify Perpetual Monetary Bailout

Feb. 23 (EIRNS)—Readers of EIR Daily Alert will recall that on Feb. 19 we reported that the European Central Bank had justified its zero and negative interest rate policy by lying that inflation in Europe was still below its 2% target, a sleight of hand achieved by simply excluding real estate prices from their calculation of inflation—as if people no longer need to have a place to live or worry about the cost of such a luxury. (See “German S&Ls, Economists Expose ECB Cheating on Inflation Rate,” EIR Daily Alert, Feb. 19, 2020.)

The Federal Reserve is embarked on a similar justification for their panicked policy of unending pumping of funds into hedge funds, banks and zombie corporations that are dead to rights bankrupt. Fed Governor Lael Bainard delivered a speech at a Feb. 21 University of Chicago-sponsored monetary forum, in which she argued that the Fed should not stop pumping in funds once the 2% inflation target is reached, because it has to make up for past “shortfalls.” It should instead keep its foot on the gas pedal and overshoot 2% until the “average” hits the targetted amount 2%. Bloomberg helpfully informs its readers that the average inflation rate has been 1.4% since 2012—which presumably means that the Fed should keep gunning it until inflation hits, say, 2.6% for another eight years. In other words, “policy may have to remain accommodative for a long time,” Brainard offered, while describing her proposal to move the inflation goal posts as a “flexible inflation averaging approach” or, more succinctly, “opportunistic reflation.”

Why? Because the Fed needs to adopt even more aggressive measures “to counter future economic downturns,” Brainard explained. “Today’s new normal calls not only for a broader set of tools, but also a different strategy. We should clarify in advance that we will deploy a broader set of tools proactively to provide accommodation when shocks are likely to push the policy rate to its lower bound.”

Where is this all heading? Towards a hyperinflationary blowout. As Bloomberg recalled, “The Fed is engaged in an in-depth review of its policies and practices that is aimed at finding ways to cope with a new normal of subdued inflation and low interest rates. The review is expected to be completed by the middle of this year”—that is, unless the whole trans-Atlantic financial system vaporizes before then.

Pompeo’s Africa Trip Had No Purpose But To Attack China

Feb. 22 (EIRNS)—Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s just-completed visits to three African countries appear completely self-defeating, visits which discredit the United States across the African continent. Pompeo’s trip to Ethiopia, Senegal, and Angola, Feb. 15-19, had no United States purposes; it was conducted solely to attack China with three of China’s leading cooperating nations and recipients of its investment, none of which are going to suspend their cooperation with China. It had no tangible result, but cannot have helped President Donald Trump’s standing with Africa, nor with China, with which he has repeatedly expressed his aim to cooperate.

As observed in Australia’s Lowy Institute blog “The Interpreter,” on Feb. 12: “More to the point, all three countries are also key regional partners for China in Africa. In December 2018, Senegal became the first West African nation to sign onto the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) when it welcomed Chinese President Xi Jinping. Dakar is also hosting the 2021 Forum on China Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), bringing together Chinese and African heads of state to discuss the strategic framework for the next three years of China-Africa relations. Ethiopia is a leading investment destination for Chinese businesses, recipient of several high-profile Chinese infrastructure projects such as the continent’s first light railway in Addis Ababa and [African Union] AU headquarters, and strategic anchor for China’s Eastern Africa BRI. Angola has received some of the highest amounts of oil-backed Chinese infrastructure loans in Africa, is China’s second-largest African trading partner, and a key source of petroleum for China.”

The Washington Post on Feb. 20 wrote: “The trip concluded without an announcement of any major deal or new initiative, and it deepened a sense … that U.S. politics has moved away from popular humanitarian programs and broad-based trade benefits, to a near-singular focus on economic cooperation with China.” Meaning a negative pressure focus on those nations cooperating. “Given the vast gap between Chinese and American economic investment in Africa, cuts to many of those [U.S.] humanitarian programs, and the impending expiration of the U.S. government’s biggest trade-benefit program in Africa, the lack of a big-ticket announcement also seemed to underline how … the U.S. government’s Africa policy [has shifted] toward the rhetorical as opposed to the tangible.” The Post cited experts debunking Pompeo’s claims about China’s projects in Africa, and an African expert stating, “This talk of ‘true liberation’ is of course highly exaggerated.”

U.S. POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC

Trump Slams Corrupt Justice System that Jailed ‘Thousands’ Unjustly

Feb. 21 (EIRNS)—In a moving, laughter-filled address to graduates of the Hope for Prisoners program in Las Vegas, Nevada yesterday, President Donald Trump reminded graduates that “you are made by God for a great and noble purpose … and you’re valued members of our American family,” who should look forward to a rewarding future in society, with the tools to be successful. The Hope for Prisoners program trains inmates in a variety of areas—job training, leadership training, professional development training, technology training, and much more—providing them mentoring and support once they reenter the community.

In his speech, the President reminded the graduates that when he ran for President, he pledged to fight “for those who have been forgotten, neglected, overlooked and ignored by politicians in our nation’s capital. And you understand that very well.” He addressed the issue of unjust sentencing, by which individuals have received lengthy sentences for non-violent crimes, going on that there are “thousands of people in prison” who have received such sentences. “You have thousands of people that shouldn’t be there, and I love finding those people.” He urged the graduates to send him recommendations of individuals they know who had been unjustly sentenced.

Trump also directly addressed the corruption of the justice system, which he said he was committed to “straightening out … but we have to straighten it out also at the top level.” He raised the unfairness of the Roger Stone case, the fact that the forewoman of his jury was tainted with anti-Trump bias, and the details of the corruption of top-level FBI leadership—Comey, McCabe, Strzok and Lisa Page—the FBI “dirty cops.” The charge was that Stone lied, Trump said, but what about Comey, McCabe et al., who all lied outrageously. There were forged documents and fake dossiers, and leaking of classified documents, for which no one has been punished or jailed.

The President explained that he began to push for justice reform a year ago, to “redress unfairness in the justice system,” and was proud that his bill rolls back provisions of the “really terrible 1994 crime bill,” which “disproportionately impacted the African American community.” This message the new bill sends to prisoners, Trump said, is that “when you return to society, we are not going to leave you behind…. I’m here today because I believe in what you can do … that America is a nation that believes in redemption … we believe in second chances.”

Nevada Voters Defy Pundits—Sanders Wins Caucuses Decisively

Feb. 23 (EIRNS)—Bernie Sanders won a decisive victory in the Nevada caucuses on Saturday, Feb. 22, as voters rejected the scenarios put forward by establishment pundits. According to exit and entrance polls, Sanders led in all demographic groups except people over 65, and all ideological categories including those who identified themselves as moderates.

Following the vote, President Donald Trump tweeted, “Looks like Crazy Bernie is doing well in the Great State of Nevada. Biden & the rest look weak, & no way Mini Mike can restart his campaign after the worst debate performance in the history of Presidential Debates. Congratulations Bernie, & don’t let them take it away from you!”

In a later tweet, Trump wrote: “Are any Democrat operatives, the DNC, or Crooked Hillary Clinton, blaming Russia, Russia, Russia for the Bernie Sanders win in Nevada. If so I suggest calling Bob Mueller & the 13 Angry Democrats to do a new Mueller Report, Democrat Edition. Bob will get to the bottom of it!”

Although Sanders has gone to great trouble to present himself as the anti-establishment candidate in the Democratic Party, his policies are anything but. For example, when asked about the assessment of the intelligence community, presented last week to the House Intelligence Committee headed by the unbalanced anti-Trump fanatic, Adam Schiff, that Russian President Vladimir Putin is again meddling to support him and Trump, Sanders had the following response:

“Unlike Donald Trump, I do not consider Vladimir Putin a good friend. He is an autocratic thug who is attempting to destroy democracy and crush dissent in Russia. Let’s be clear, the Russians want to undermine American democracy by dividing us up and, unlike the current president, I stand firmly against their efforts, and any other foreign power that wants to interfere in our election. I don’t care, frankly, who Putin wants to be president. My message to Putin is clear: stay out of American elections, and as president I will make sure that you do.”

It has been clear from his statements on the campaign trail, supporting the articles of impeachment against the President, that Sanders fully accepts the discredited theories fabricated against Trump in the fairy tales of Russiagate and Ukrainegate.

STRATEGIC WAR DANGER

Afghanistan, U.S., and Taliban Announce Seven-Day Reduction in Violence

Feb. 22 (EIRNS)—Afghan forces, the Taliban, and U.S. forces announced that a seven-day “reduction in violence” began at midnight, Feb. 22 in Afghanistan (Feb. 21, 19:30 UTC), or 2:30 p.m. U.S. Eastern Time Feb. 21, NPR’s Scott Neuman and Diaa Hadid reported. They described it as “a possible prelude to a broader peace deal following two decades of war,” according to U.S. and Afghan officials. The quasi-ceasefire was put together during protracted negotiations in Qatar that began in 2018. If a successful week-long reduction causes a ceasefire to be signed by these parties, including President Donald Trump, it could lead to a significant reduction of the roughly 12,000 U.S. troops there, NPR suggested.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement today, “We are preparing for the signing [of an agreement with the Taliban] to take place on Feb. 29. Intra-Afghan negotiations will start soon hereafter, and will build on this fundamental step to deliver a comprehensive and permanent ceasefire and the future political roadmap for Afghanistan.”

Valery Kulikov, political analyst for the Moscow-based online magazine New Eastern Outlook reports that the United States and the Taliban have recently managed to define the main terms of a peace deal as follows:

• The Taliban guarantee that they will not allow international terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda to use Afghanistan as a training ground for attacks abroad;

• The United States must withdraw its troops from the country. In particular, about 5,000 U.S. soldiers are expected to be withdrawn immediately when a peace agreement is signed, and the remaining troops will leave the country within the next two years.

• With an indefinite truce, the conflicting parties within Afghanistan should begin an internal political dialogue.

Kulikov points out that while the United States speaks of suppressing the Taliban, the fact is that the Taliban still have the capacity to strike back as effectively as before. Therefore, it is not surprising, he says, to see the growing demands both in Afghanistan and in America for the military to leave the region. In a recent interview with Fox News, U.S. Army Col. Douglas Macgregor (ret.) admitted that the U.S.-made government of Afghanistan is likely to collapse almost immediately after the withdrawal of U.S. troops, and that there is no point in supporting a corrupt Afghanistan that has become an “international heroin machine.” Thus, Macgregor said, Trump should take more decisive actions to end the Afghan tragedy.

Moscow Warns U.S. To Quit Exercises for Nuclear Strikes on Russia!

Feb. 22 (EIRNS)—Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov delivered a strong message to the United States yesterday: Moscow condemns Washington’s attempts to simulate a limited nuclear strike on Russia in the strongest terms, which TASS reported today.

Ryabkov condemned the series of U.S. command-staff exercises and other drills involving the simulation of nuclear strikes, particularly—as it became known recently—on targets in Russia, he said, commenting on a recent military drill in the U.S. “We condemn such actions because they clearly show that Washington is determined to pursue the path of confrontation and keep lowering the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons,” Ryabkov stated. “The U.S. is embarking on a highly dangerous game instead of focusing on efforts to strengthen the arms control system that would also cover nuclear weapons. As we have stressed on numerous occasions, we would use nuclear weapons only in two exceptional cases—if Russia faces an attack with weapons of mass destruction or an aggression involving the large-scale use of conventional arms that puts the country’s existence at risk,” he emphasized.

Ryabkov attacked as “idle talk that has nothing to do with reality,” the allegations that Russia “could act based on the ‘escalation for the sake of de-escalation’ principle….

“This is why we would like to once again draw the attention of our American colleagues to the need to dot all the i’s in their defense planning and once again confirm the well-known formula that has been there since the Soviet era, which says that that there can be no winners in a nuclear war and it should never be unleashed.” He concluded, ““The United States’ reluctance to confirm the formula gives us more reason to believe that Washington continues drawing up scenarios involving the use of nuclear weapons.”

The TASS report includes that “A senior Pentagon official told reporters earlier that the U.S. had conducted a classified military drill,” the scenario of which ‘included a European contingency where you’re conducting a war with Russia and Russia decides to use a low-yield, limited nuclear weapon against a site on NATO territory,’ the official said, adding: ‘During the course of the exercise, we simulated responding with a nuclear weapon.’ ”

OTHER

German Leaders in Panic, as EU Demands Suppression of Protests

Feb. 22 (EIRNS)—Following the chaotic conduct of the German national and state leaders of the Christian Democratic Union toward the right-wing Alternativ für Deutschland (AfD) party in the effort to form a new state government in Thuringia, the country has now been shocked by a mass-shooter’s killing of ten people and himself in districts of primarily hookah bars frequented by migrants in Hanau. The 43-year-old shooter, Tobias Rathjen, not previously known to police authorities, followed a Malthusian manifesto which burned to kill the world’s “billions” in overpopulation, including virtually entire countries, such as India.

The aftermath, as characterized by Schiller Institute President Helga Zepp-LaRouche today, is one of real political hysteria with social effects. Leaders are demanding that Germany national police, the Bundesverfassungsshutz, ban the AfD, which has become one of the largest vote-getting parties in many federal states. The ruling Christian Democracy (CDU) has been torn apart on the issue of how to deal with the AfD, ostensibly in Thuringia, which cost it its national chairperson; it now has none. Chancellor Angela Merkel intervened while abroad to demand that an entire state parliamentary election be done overbecause of its result. (Thuringia now has a Minister President, for a bit, at least, with the CDU agreeing to vote for the Left Party’s candidate.)

In this panicked environment, the European Union bureaucracy is intervening with demands for smashing, in reality, all “protest” parties and organizations—something it aims for, not only in Germany. Now it is using the “threat of Nazism” (which is not without its reality, but not without help from Brussels) as a broad brush to attack those who go against the EU green policies, which are quite truly fascist austerity. And this while farmers across Western Europe are protesting the EU’s “green” deprivations of their work and livelihood; and Germany’s demands for a big EU “Green New Deal” are rendering the Brussels unable to adopt a budget, splitting it several ways. The EU is threatening that, if countries refuse to pay more for its decarbonization/deindustrialization scheme, it will take the money it needs from the Common Agricultural Policy, further aiming to wipe out family farmers.

Nothing short of a “LaRouchean” reversal of EU deindustrialist and Malthusian policies, and a turn to cooperation with Russia, China, the United States, and India for peace and scientific progress, could reverse these steps toward ungovernability. Helga Zepp-LaRouche since Jan. 6 has been calling for an emergency summit of the Presidents of the United States, Russia, and China to launch the process. The exoneration of Lyndon LaRouche would give it the right content.

Reach us at eirdailyalert@larouchepub.com or call 1-571-293-0935