EDITORIAL
The Fight To End ‘Russiagate’ Is No Sports Spectacle; You Have To Intervene To Defeat It
Feb. 4 (EIRNS)—The United States is at a turning point in its decades-long “internal” battle against British intelligence’s use of U.S. intelligence agencies to control and blackmail Presidents. It is also at a turning point of foreign policy, which leads the world either toward an imminent thermonuclear war confrontation, or to a new paradigm of great-power cooperation in ending regional wars, building great infrastructure, conquering poverty and defeating international terrorism.
The two turning points have the same target—fighting British geopolitics. The long coup attempt against this American President, the “Russiagate” scandal in which the tide may now be turning, was brought to Washington by the head of British MI6 foreign intelligence nearly two years ago. It was spear-pointed by a British “dossier” whose misuse has now been exposed by the House Intelligence Committee. Its purpose was to blackmail the United States on the foreign policy its President would be permitted to carry out.
Britain’s Royal Institute of International Affairs (RIIA) on Jan. 25 issued instructions to America to “see Russia as a threat,” and stated that “striking a grand bargain” of cooperation with Russia—for example, against international terrorism—“would implicitly accept that the current world order is no longer functional.” The RIIA couldn’t make it more clear. The British geopolitical world order depends on U.S.-Russia confrontation; the ultimatum to President-elect Donald Trump was delivered by the heads of the intelligence agencies already in a meeting of Jan. 6, 2017 at Trump Tower: Confront and attack Russia (and China) or we will scandalize you with this British dossier, and throw you out.
This is their criminal, actually treasonous act which is now being exposed. The world is living with its consequences, however, in the growing threat of actual thermonuclear war, and we will live with that until and unless this British-U.S. intelligence conspiracy is thoroughly broken up.
Some Representatives in Congress have now called for the next step—criminal investigation and potential prosecution of the intelligence officials who acted to block and disqualify President Trump from the Presidency, solely because of his policy towards Russia. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes called the conspiracy against Trump, “That’s something that happens in banana republics.”
There have not actually been any banana republics in South America for some time, only republics cooperating with China and the BRICS and successfully becoming industrial and scientific leaders. In other words, violating the British geopolitical world order. And the presidents and former presidents of those republics—Brazil’s Lula and Dilma Rousseff, Argentina’s Fernández de Kirchner, Ecuador’s Rafael Correa—have been targeted for scandal and overthrow just as Trump was to be overthrown, and by the very same teams at FBI and CIA led by Robert Mueller, James Comey, et al.
Robert Mueller 30 years ago, as Boston Assistant U.S. Attorney, led the prosecutions attempting to eliminate Lyndon LaRouche as a political leader. LaRouche in 1984 was challenging the British geopolitical world order as no one else. He had influenced Ronald Reagan to offer U.S.-Russian missile defense cooperation in the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), and was moving great infrastructure projects and proposing international development banks to spread the revolutionary SDI military technologies into industry all over the world.
Many Republican leaders now are fighting the attack on President Trump, which originated in British intelligence, and simultaneously pushing the British policy of sharp confrontations with Russia and China themselves! As the head of the well-known Munich Security Conference just observed, the Congress is preventing President Trump from urgent improvements in U.S.-Russia relations.
The American people, and their constituency leaders, have to intervene to save the nation, using the 2018 Congressional elections.
We need coordinated reinstatement of Glass-Steagall bank separation across the United States and Europe, before the City of London and Wall Street take our economies into another, worse crash.
We need international agreements to build the most crucial new infrastructure worldwide, accepting China’s leadership in its Belt and Road Initiative. America itself has huge deficits for urgent new economic infrastructure, and needs to form a national credit institution to participate; a new Rooseveltian Reconstruction Finance Corporation, or a Hamiltonian national bank.
And we could have an international agreement to develop new-technology defenses which work against thermonuclear missiles. It has recently been confirmed (“The British Sabotaged the Second Try for an SDI with Russia,” EIR Daily Alert, Jan. 23, 2018) that Russia has been ready for 25 years to resume Reagan’s SDI, with the United States, to develop real anti-missile defenses and new spin-off technologies—and that Britain has strongly opposed this.
The way to intervene is to join the LaRouche Political Action Committee’s mobilization for LaRouche’s “Four Economic Laws” going into those elections.
U.S. POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC
State Department Confirms Visit of Russian Security Chiefs
Feb. 2 (EIRNS)—The extraordinary meeting over the past week between the top intelligence leaders from Russia and the U.S. were both confirmed and defended by the CIA and the State Department, despite hysterical denunciations by the Russiagate mob. CIA chief Mike Pompeo defended the meetings in a letter to Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), and the State Department has made very favorable comments on the visits of the director of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service Sergey Naryshkin, Federal Security Service (FSB) chief Alexander Bortnikov, and chief of the Russian General Staff’s Main Intelligence Directorate Col. Gen. Igor Korobov to Washington last week.
“I can tell you in a general matter, if something is considered to be in the national security interest of the United States, just like other countries, we have the ability to waive that so that people can come in to the United States,” State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert said referring to the fact that sanctions against the three were suspended for the visit, reported TASS. “It is no secret that despite our many, many differences…with the Russian government, we also have areas where we have to work together, and one of those is combatting terrorism and ISIS,” she continued.
“I know it’s a matter that’s frustrating to a lot of reporters—visa applications and those types of things are something that we are not able to discuss. That is considered private information under the federal law. Like it or not, that is just the law and so we have to adhere to that.”
Sputnik makes the point that the visit could be seen in the context of statements made by Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov made last month at which he said Russia is interested in increasing U.S.-Russian cooperation against terrorism in the context of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s initiative to establish an international counter-terrorism coalition. Antonov also said that the U.S. and Russia have no obstacles for such cooperation against terrorism and drafting the necessary regulatory framework for agreements would ensure national security of both states has been created.
Empire Intelligence Tried Bullying U.S. Not To Release Nunes Memo, Feared Threat to War Plans
Feb. 2 (EIRNS)—The British daily Telegraph reported last night that British intelligence had threatened U.S. officials, including Members of Congress, that release of the Nunes House Intelligence memo exposing abuse of FISA surveillance, could harm the Anglo-American intelligence-sharing relationship. “The U.K. will be less likely to share confidential information if the secret memo about the Russian investigation is made public, according to those opposing its release,” the Telegraph reported. Further, it claimed that “figures in America’s Justice Department” were also “warning that the U.K.-U.S. intelligence sharing relationship could be damaged by the move.”
Given that the Nunes memo exposed the lying, and criminal, FBI/DOJ “intelligence sharing relationship” with MI6 agent Christopher Steele at the center of the British interference into the 2016 U.S. general elections, the subsequent coup drive against President Donald Trump, and its associated “Russiagate” drive for war, shutting off that relationship is not a bad thing!
Caught in the act, assets of the MI6 operation are screaming that the release of the Nunes memo on Steele’s operation may sink the entire McCarthyite “Russia is a threat” campaign. Such is the argument of Steele promoter David Corn, Washington, D.C. chief at Mother Jones—who is named in the Nunes memo—who whines in his article posted yesterday, that the Nunes memo prevents “keep[ing] the spotlight from shining on a profound national security concern: the continuing threat from Russia.” Vladimir Putin is gunning for the U.S. 2018 midterm elections, Corn repeats over and over, and “this threat from Russia should be in the headlines—more than the antics of Nunes.”
On cue, the discredited House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi joined Republican Sen. John McCain in denouncing the release of the Nunes memo as effectively a Russian operation. “President Trump has surrendered his constitutional responsibility as Commander-in-Chief by releasing highly classified and distorted intelligence. By not protecting intelligence sources and methods, he just sent his friend Putin a bouquet,” frothed Pelosi. McCain’s statement goes on and on about how “the latest attacks on the FBI and Department of Justice serve no American interests —no party’s, no president’s, only Putin’s.”
Chatham House Insists U.S.-Russia Relationship Grow Worse in 2018
Feb. 2 (EIRNS)—Her Royal Majesty’s Royal Institute of International Affairs has again instructed her American lackeys to ensure no friendly, productive U.S.-Russian relationship be allowed to develop.
The RIIA, dubbed Chatham House, posted an “expert opinion” Jan. 25 by one of their minions to this effect. Author Mathieu Boulegue dismissed President Trump’s “personal deference to Vladimir Putin” as (luckily) not reflecting “the broader picture of tense U.S.-Russia relations. The political and military establishment in Washington sees Russia as a threat, as outlined in the recently published National Security Strategy (NSS) and National Defense Strategy (NDS),” Boulegue wrote.
His argument runs that Russia is getting confident, and pushing “brinksmanship” which could lead to war, and so “escalation management” is now paramount for U.S. and NATO. “In this environment, the scope for improving the U.S.-Russia relationship or finding mutual interest appears limited.
“For now, Washington is raising the cost of Russia’s actions through sanctions and quick-fix policies, such as providing lethal weapons to Ukraine.”
But, “this is not enough. Washington needs to devise a strategy for U.S.-Russia relations that effectively manages the threat posed by the Kremlin,” he wrote, to then instruct: “Trump’s National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster hinted at competitive engagement with Moscow in his December 2017 speech. This will have to be done without accommodating the Kremlin and/or striking a grand bargain—which would implicitly accept that the current world order is no longer functional.”
Ischinger: Congress Has Tied Trump’s Hands To Stop U.S.-Russian Relations from Improving
Feb. 3 (EIRNS)—Wolfgang Ischinger, Chairman of the Munich Security Conference, charged that the U.S. Congress has done everything it could to prevent President Donald Trump from being able to improve relations with Russia. Ischinger’s statement comes ahead of the 54th Session of the Munich Security Conference, formerly known as the Wehrkunde, which takes place on Feb. 16-18. The American side will be represented by Defense Secretary Mattis, National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster, and Sen. John McCain, among others.
Ischinger told TASS that the atmosphere between Washington and Moscow could not get “any worse.” “I assess the current state of affairs as dangerous, deeply regrettable and in dire need of improvement,” he said. “Is there any chance for it? I hope that after the Presidential elections, the Russian side will have an opportunity to reach out to Washington. And I hope that after the midterm elections in the U.S. this coming November, the situation in the country will somewhat calm down.” He continued that “the current situation is the most dangerous since the collapse of the U.S.S.R.”
He then said it is very hard for the White House to come up with any initiative on the issue, because “the U.S. Congress has tied the President’s hands.”
“But Moscow can do a lot. If Washington realizes that there is no need to fear any interference in its elections or any hybrid confrontation, then a serious cause for criticism would be removed. Both sides need to contribute a lot to normalizing their relations,” Ischinger stressed.
STRATEGIC WAR DANGER
U.S. Has No Doubt that Russia Is Honoring Its New START Obligations
Feb. 2 (EIRNS)—In response to a media question at her press briefing yesterday, State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert confirmed that U.S. administration has no doubt that Russia will honor its commitments under the bilateral Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) by Feb. 5. “The United States has met the central limits of the New START Treaty in August 2017. We assess at this time that Russia has also progressed toward meeting those limits. We have no reason to believe that the Russian government will not meet those limits as well,” she said. “Moscow has repeatedly stated its intention to meet those limits on time, and we have no reason to believe that that won’t be the case,” she said. The treaty sets Feb. 5 as the deadline.
Russia, China Response to U.S. Nuclear Posture Review: Nuclear War Threat Growing
Feb. 4 (EIRNS)—Foreign and Defense Ministries of Russia and China both issued strong statements against the new U.S. Nuclear Posture Review released Feb. 2, which make clear that they see therein an increasing threat of nuclear war by miscalculation among great powers. In particular, the Pentagon projections for creation of low-yield nuclear weapons for cruise missiles on surface ships, and for low-yield warheads for Trident II submarines’ missiles, drew their concern.
The Russian Foreign Ministry statement, as customary, said Russia would take all measures in response to ensure its own security. But it said, as quoted by Sputnik: “Even more dangerous is the belief of the U.S. military experts and other specialists in the sphere of national security … in their ability to reliably simulate the development of conflicts in which they allow usage of ‘low-yield’ nuclear warheads. For us, the opposite is clear: Significantly lowered ‘threshold conditions’ may lead to a missile-nuclear war even during low-intensity conflicts.” The ministry also reiterated that Russian military doctrine allows use of nuclear weapons “only when the very existence of our state is threatened.”
China’s Defense Ministry rejected the idea that China is an adversary, quoting the 74-page Pentagon document, that China is “a major challenge to U.S. interests in Asia,” against which U.S. strategy aims to “prevent Beijing from mistakenly concluding that it could secure an advantage through the limited use of its theater nuclear capabilities….”
China, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, commands 300 nuclear warhead, the United States and Russia 7,000 each. Defense Ministry spokesman Ren Guoqiang confirmed that “China has adhered to the policy of no-first-use of nuclear weapons at any time and under any circumstances,” said the Defense Ministry statement. “We hope the U.S. side will discard its ‘cold-war mentality,’ ” said Ren.
THE NEW GLOBAL ECONOMIC ORDER
High-Level Vienna Event on New Silk Road Discusses Linking 16+1 with Austria
Feb. 2 (EIRNS)—The Austrian Association for Transport Science (Österreichische Verkehrswissenschaftliche Gesellschaft, ÖVG) held a seminar on the New Silk Road, its challenges and opportunities for Austria, in Vienna on Jan. 31. The Chinese Ambassador addressed the event, which also heard presentations by five Austrian speakers, including the CEO of the country’s railway company, and two officials of the National Bank.
The event was sold out already a week before it was held, with attendees including senior officials of both major firms and Mittelstand firms in transport, many of them also members of the ÖVG. The event’s host Walter Ruck, president of the Vienna Chamber of Industry, said in his introductory remarks that “the New Silk Road is a project for generations, maybe a century,” that it requires longer-term thinking on the European end in order to play an active role in this perspective. Ruck welcomed the fact that the new Austrian government has a commitment to the Silk Road in its official program, and that Austria’s President Alexander Van der Bellen will visit China later this year with the Silk Road on his agenda.
Chinese Ambassador Li Xiaosi invited Austria to come up with constructive proposals, which China would always be ready to accept, as long as they are made on a win-win basis. He invited Austria to join the 16+1 format, of China plus 16 Central and Eastern European Countries (CEEC), turning it into a “16+1+Austria” secretariat. He also hinted that the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank would consider funding the construction of a direct, modern rail freight link from the Chinese-run Greek port of Piraeus to Vienna; the Serbian section of that link is already under construction.
UN’s Secretary General Guterres Welcomes Results of Syrian Dialogue in Sochi
Feb. 3 (EIRNS)—UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres welcomed the outcome of the Syrian National Dialogue Congress held in Sochi, Russia on Jan. 30, during remarks to reporters at the UN in New York yesterday. The UN’s presence in Sochi was based on a common understanding between the United Nations and Russia on the nature and outcome of the meeting and its contribution to the Geneva process, reports Xinhua. The Sochi talks concluded with a statement fully in line with that common understanding. “My special envoy [Staffan de Mistura] will now draw on this Sochi outcome to meet our shared goal: full implementation of Security Council Resolution 2254 and the Geneva Communiqué. He will also work for the talks to address the other areas determined by Resolution 2254,” Guterres said.
However, Guterres expressed concern over the situation on within Syria: “We must never forget that progress toward a political settlement needs to be accompanied by progress on the ground.” Yet in the last two months, he said, not a single convoy of life-saving relief has reached a besieged area—no medical supplies, no food. “Humanitarian aid is not getting in. And people suffering dire health conditions are not getting out.”
SCIENCE AND INFRASTRUCTURE
India Budget Makes a Whopping 18% Increase in Space Program
Feb. 3 (EIRNS)—In the just-released national budget for Fiscal 2018 India’s Department of Space has gotten a whopping 18.7% increase. The Department oversees the India Space Research Organization (ISRO) and India’s space industry. Since 2013, the Department of Space has received increases of 40%, 6.6%, 2%, 8%, 14%, and now 18.6%, over the previous year.
The Indian space program’s emphasis has always been on satellite-based technologies for applications in the economy and raising people’s standard of living. In the new budget, the government has given a “huge chunk of investment” to centers working in new technologies for satellites and launch vehicles, and has identified 156 areas where space technology can be used “for the welfare of the common man,” as Geospatial World describes it.
The budget also supports programs in the space sciences, including a second Mars Orbiter Mission, a Venus mission plan, small satellites, and an X-ray satellite called XpoSat. In space applications, there is an emphasis on remote sensing and disaster management related support.
Although the press constantly blabs about an “Asian space race,” India has focused its space program on inputs to its economy, and recently has branched out to include space science. Most notable, have been successful missions to orbit the Moon, and Mars.
Infrastructure Investment Barely Meeting Depreciation in U.S.
Feb. 2 (EIRNS)—Investopedia on Jan. 31 posted a comparison of the G7 so-called leading industrial nations’ spending on infrastructure during the 20 years from 1996-2015, as a proportion of GDP. It found the United States the most negligent of the seven; the U.S. averaged investing 0.59% of GDP annually over the two decades, and never invested more than 0.68% of GDP. “The other notable trend,” Investopedia noted, “is massive spending by China.”
The U.S. infrastructure investment rate is now something over $100 billion/year, with 65-70% of that provided by states, counties, and cities. And $100 billion is what one of PricewaterhouseCoopers’ (PwC) infrastructure studies, dealing with North America, estimated as the annual depreciation rate of that share of infrastructure across the country which is still depreciating—i.e., not so old and unimproved as to be worth zero.
The White House infrastructure proposal, at least as very recently leaked, at best would double this rate of spending, assuming that existing Federal infrastructure lending programs were not “folded in” to the proposed $200 billion in a decade, or cut. The United States would still remain well below Japan, China and France. It would maintain roughly the same proportions of Federal versus local funding, with private investment (“PPPs”) the unknown quantity. PPP contracts totaled just $2.4 billion in the United States in 2015, rose to about $16 billion in 2016 and $14 billion in 2017.
One way or another, PPPs are local spending—whether the locals pay in increased tolls, taxes, water charges, parking fees, etc. They clearly have also not amounted to much relative to the investment needed.
COLLAPSING WESTERN FINANCIAL SYSTEM
Financial Titanic Lists Dangerously Close to Capsizing
Feb. 3 (EIRNS)—On Friday, Feb. 2, the Dow Jones fell by 666 points, its biggest daily percentage drop in 20 months, and the largest daily point loss since the December 2008 crash. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq also saw their worst week since 2016.
Although the daily stock market roller-coaster has little meaning in itself, the underlying issue is that there is now panic on both sides of the Atlantic that the whole speculative bubble could blow at any moment. The banks and other financial institutions are caught in a Catch-22 of interest rates as a result of their own insane policy of quantitative easing (QE): interest rates must be raised to prevent a hyperinflationary blowout, and at the same time they must not be raised or the debt and linked derivates bubble will implode.
Although this past week’s final Federal Open Market Committee meeting under Federal Reserve System chair Janet Yellen did nothing on interest rates, there is a lot of chatter in the financial media that rates could well rise at next month’s meeting under incoming Fed chair Jerome Powell. The situation “could prompt the Federal Reserve to take a more aggressive approach to rate hikes this year,” Reuters reported. Bloomberg fretted that “looking at the week’s drumbeat, you can’t help but wonder, is this the start of something big? Some see the end of the blissfully easy money that equities have spewed out for 13 straight months.”
Another clear sign of panic is the comments by European Central Bank Executive Board member Benoit Coeuré. For the last couple of years, Mario Draghi’s ECB has been picking up the slack for the slowing down of QE by the Fed. But now the ECB seems to be discussing something far more aggressive: perhaps a form of “QE5,” on top of what JPMorgan Chase Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon accurately described as the “QE4” of the recently passed tax package in Washington.
