EIR Daily Alert Service, THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2018

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2018
Volume 5, Number 33
EIR Daily Alert Service
P.O. Box 17390, Washington, DC 20041-0390
There Is No Russian Threat, There Is No China Threat—Only the British Empire Threat
DNI’s Threat Assessment Takes on Drug Crisis
Macron Warns, France Will Bomb Syria If Chemical Weapons Are Used
Tillerson Faces Difficult Time in Ankara
Britain’s IISS Says China’s Military Modernizations Challenge the U.S.
South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma Is Recalled by African National Congress
Regime-Change Plans for Venezuela Gearing Up
The Administration’s ‘Looney Idea’ To Sell TVA Power Lines Is Dead on Arrival
American Intelligence Chiefs Claim Chinese Cell Phones Are Spy Tools
Xi Stresses Multi-Generational Commitment To Build the Nation, in Spring Festival Greeting
International Space Forum Calls Space Cooperation Paramount To Fighting Poverty in Africa
Former U.S. Astronaut Urges To Expand International Space Station, Bringing in China and India

EDITORIAL
There Is No Russian Threat, There Is No China Threat—Only the British Empire Threat
Feb. 14 (EIRNS)—You would be forgiven if you awoke this morning and read the morning paper or listened to the U.S. news outlets and concluded that you had passed through a time warp, waking up in the early 1950s. “The Russians are coming,” you hear first —they are trying to snatch the elections. “The Chinese threaten our society,” comes next—they are infiltrating our schools, poisoning our children’s minds with anti-democratic propaganda.
Sen. Joe McCarthy? FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover? No, this was today’s Sen. Marco Rubio and FBI Director Christopher Wray, speaking Tuesday at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing with America’s leading intelligence chiefs. And, as we have seen over the past weeks, the anti-China hysteria is exceeding even that against Russia, especially now that the entire Russiagate scam is being publicly exposed as a British-instigated coup attempt, orchestrated by MI6 and the Obama Administration intelligence chiefs, just as EIR had revealed in its pamphlet “Robert Mueller is an Amoral Legal Assassin.”
Senator Rubio said that, although the Kremlin poses a serious threat, and is trying to interfere in the 2018 U.S. elections, China is “the biggest issue of our time.” FBI Director Wray joined in, accusing Chinese professors, scientists and students of being “non-traditional collectors”—i.e., spies. “The Bureau is actively investigating some Chinese government-backed groups that are facilitating dialogues between Chinese and American academics,” Wray said, and stating that he had “concerns” about the Confucius Institutes, and that the FBI has “developed appropriate investigations into them.”
And yet, the President of the United States has consistently insisted that the U.S. must build friendly relations with China and with Russia—in fact, he held productive discussions with Vladimir Putin and State Councillor Yang Jiechi (China’s leading foreign policy official) over the past week.
One of the clearest and wisest proposals to President Trump on how to succeed in his bold vision for rebuilding America’s collapsed infrastructure was published today on the website of China’s CGTN television network. In an article titled “Make America Great Again—With Chinese Money,” Dr. John Gong, a professor at the prestigious Beijing University of International Business and Economics, writes that Trump’s $1.5 billion infrastructure plan is an excellent and necessary idea, but (as is being asked across the U.S.) where is the money going to come from?
“I have a great idea,” Dr. Gong writes. He states that China has $3 trillion in reserves, mostly in U.S. government debt. “This money can be readily used for Chinese investors to participate in America’s infrastructure boom.” He poses that “China’s current account trade surplus can be somehow transformed into a capital account stock, in the form of money invested in America as permanent equity shareholders, and more importantly permanent stakeholders of a stable and prosperous Sino-U.S. economic relationship.”
The “somehow” in this idea is well known to readers of this Alert Service: the concept of a new National Bank, or a National Infrastructure Bank, as proposed by Lyndon LaRouche as one of his “Four Laws.” Leading Chinese economists and officials have shown great interest in the proposal, as a means of swapping their massive U.S. debt holdings into equity in such a bank, thus bypassing those who are sabotaging Chinese investment in the U.S. on “security” grounds, while turning the debt into credit for rebuilding the United States. Alexander Hamilton would be proud.
With few exceptions, the members of Congress, and even many of the people in the President’s inner circle, would rather defend the bankrupt Western financial system than allow the adoption of a new, functioning system based on the win-win policies of the New Silk Road and a Hamiltonian reorganization of the banks—even if it means depression and war. The President has gained in his support from the American people over the past months by standing up to the lies about Russian and Chinese “aggression,” and by insisting on scientific and industrial progress against the zero-growthers and greenies. He is well situated at this moment to adopt the LaRouche policies against the Lords of Wall Street. People of good will must organize the support needed to make this a reality now.
U.S. POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC
DNI’s Threat Assessment Takes on Drug Crisis
Feb. 14 (EIRNS)—The National Threat Assessment released Tuesday by Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats includes the following stark statistics on “Premature Deaths” in the U.S. between 2000-2016:
According to a graph in the unclassified “Worldwide Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community” published yesterday, four non-disease causes of premature death between 2000 and 2016 showed:
Drug poisoning skyrocketed from 15,000 deaths in 2000 to 63,000 deaths in 2016
Suicides from 30,000 in 2000 to 45,000 in 2016;
Motor vehicle deaths was 42,000 in 2000 and dropped some to 40,000 in 2016;
Homicides remained roughly the same at 14,000 from 2000 to 2016.
The Assessment reports that “Americans in 2016 died in record numbers from drug overdoses, 21% more than in 2015,” and that “U.S. mortality from potent synthetic opioids doubled in 2016, and synthetic opioids have become a key cause of U.S. drug deaths”—a measure of the unfolding dark age, which must be reversed.
STRATEGIC WAR DANGER
Macron Warns, France Will Bomb Syria If Chemical Weapons Are Used
Feb. 14 (EIRNS)—French President Emmanuel Macron vowed yesterday that “France will strike” if chemical weapons are used against civilians in Syria in violation of international treaties. He had to admit, however, that there is no evidence of such use. “On chemical weapons, I set a red line and I reaffirm that red line,” Macron told reporters, according to Reuters. “If we have proven evidence that chemical weapons proscribed in treaties are used, we will strike the place where they are made. Today, our agencies, our armed forces have not established that chemical weapons, as set out in treaties, have been used against the civilian population.”
The vice president of the so-called White Helmets civil defense organization, Abdulrahman Almawwas, said France should stop talking and take real action. The White Helmets are known assets of the British working hand-in-hand with the terrorist networks to falsely accuse the Syrian government of chemical weapons use and other atrocities.
Macron’s vow is described as an attempt to increase marginal French leverage in Syria, but it turns out that the White Helmets are having problems of their own, or at least, they say they are. Almawwas told reporters in Paris that the organization is facing a budget shortfall of about $6 million, from a previous level of $18 million down to $12 million. He named the United States and Britain as the two largest donors to the White Helmets, but refused to say who had reduced their contributions.
Tillerson Faces Difficult Time in Ankara
Feb. 14 (EIRNS)—U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson lands in Ankara on Feb. 15, but the dispute between the U.S. and Turkey over U.S. support for the Kurdish YPG militia in northern Syria seems no closer to resolution. Tillerson vowed during a speech in Kuwait, yesterday, that the U.S. will continue to train local security forces in Syria and maintain a military presence in the country as long as required to defeat Daesh/ISIS. At the same time, he paid lip service to “the legitimate security concerns of Turkey” and promised “to be completely transparent with Turkey about our efforts in Syria to defeat ISIS, and we stand by our NATO ally in its counterterrorism efforts.” Turkey considers the YPG to be a terrorist organization linked to the outlawed Turkish Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK).
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, meanwhile, “slammed” the U.S.’s continued cooperation with the YPG, as well as the U.S. military officer who promised, last week, that the U.S. would respond to any Turkish attack in Manbij, where U.S. troops are still on patrol. “It is clear that those who say ‘we will respond aggressively if you hit us’ have never experienced an Ottoman slap,” Erdogan told deputies of his AKP party in parliament, reported Hurriyet Daily News. “We will destroy every terrorist we have seen, starting with the ones standing by their side [in Manbij]. Then they will understand that it is better for them to not to stand alongside the terrorists,” Erdogan said.
Britain’s IISS Says China’s Military Modernizations Challenge the U.S.
Feb. 14 (EIRNS)—The U.K.-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, in the 2018 edition of its annual The Military Balance report, calls China’s rapid military modernization “remarkable” and says China is poised to challenge U.S. dominance both in the air and on the sea, reports RT. “China’s emerging weapons developments and broader defense-technological progress mean that it has become a global defense innovator and is not merely ‘catching up’ with the West,” Dr. John Chipman, Director-General and Chief Executive of IISS, said at the release of the report, today. China’s Chengdu J-20 stealth fighter, which is in the process of entering front-line service with the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Air Force, will end the U.S. monopoly on operational stealth combat aircraft, he said. China is also developing the PL-15 long-range air-to-air missile which is thought to be equipped with an advance onboard radar. “These advances are all part of the Chinese air force’s goal to become capable of challenging any opponent in the air domain. For the past three decades, air dominance has been a key advantage for the U.S. and its allies. This can no longer be assumed,” Chipman stated.
The report also observes that in just the past four years, the PLA Navy has put into service new ships with a total tonnage significantly greater than the total tonnage of the entire French Navy. With its rapidly growing Navy, China is transforming into a global military power, and its new base in Djibouti will enable more naval deployments, according to the IISS report.
South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma Is Recalled by African National Congress
Feb. 14 (EIRNS)—The President of South Africa Jacob Zuma was recalled yesterday by the African National Congress (ANC). There were conflicting signals as to whether he would address the nation on Feb. 14 for his annual state of the nation.
Because “recall” is an extra-constitutional procedure only provided for in the ANC party constitution, it is not certain whether President Zuma will accept or disregard his party’s decision. Under the South African Constitution, he was elected by the National Assembly (parliament), and could be removed by it through a vote of no confidence.
ANC Secretary General Ace Magashule addressed the press on Tuesday at Luthuli House, the party’s national headquarters in Johannesburg, to read the recall statement of the ANC National Executive Committee and answer questions. The statement followed an all-night meeting of the 86-member NEC that lasted 13 hours. Magashule had been leading those who opposed recall.
The language of the ANC statement indicates that those insisting on recall had been bludgeoned or enticed into submission by the British-directed opposition, if they were not already, at heart, a part of it. The statement said, in part, that the ANC had “to act with urgency in order to steer our country towards greater levels of unity, renewal and hope. We are determined to restore the integrity of the public institutions, create political stability and urgent economic recovery…. It is critical that South Africans are united around the task of growth, job creation and economic transformation.”
With this statement, the ANC adopted the British-crafted “narrative” that Zuma was a major cause, if not the sole cause, of South Africa’s problems, rather than the British Empire stranglehold on the economy.
William Shakespeare was heard to mutter, from the grave, “What fools these mortals be … [words indistinct].”
During the 13-hour meeting, President Zuma had agreed in principle to resign, but proposed a time frame of up to six months. He wanted especially to chair the BRICS Summit in Johannesburg in July. His proposal was rejected.
In a nationally televised speech from the seat of presidency Union Buildings on Feb. 14, President Zuma announced his resignation with immediate effect.
Zuma retains extensive support throughout the country.
Regime-Change Plans for Venezuela Gearing Up
Feb. 14 (EIRNS)—Yesterday, the so-called Lima Group, made up of 14 Central, South American and Caribbean countries, as well as Canada, issued a statement following a meeting in Lima, withdrawing its previous invitation to Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to attend the April 13-14 Eighth Summit of the Americas meeting in Lima, on grounds that Venezuela has trampled on “democratic institutionality.”
This comes a week after U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson completed his five-nation tour of Ibero-America (including one Caribbean nation) whose primary purpose was to organize the continent for regime-change in Venezuela. Tillerson even called on Venezuela’s military to overthrow Maduro.
The Lima Group declaration is an escalation in the situation—withdrawing an invitation to Maduro which he had already accepted. Tillerson had reportedly made known that Donald Trump might attend the Summit, but only if Maduro weren’t there. The Lima Group has now discovered that any “unconstitutional rupture of the democratic order” in a Western Hemisphere state is justification for excluding that state from participation in the Summit of the Americas.
It goes on to list Venezuela’s crimes against democracy, demands the immediate opening of a “humanitarian corridor” to mitigate the effects of terrible food and medicine shortages in Venezuela, and calls on member states to “coordinate efforts” to deal with the Venezuelan crisis in an “orderly and safe” fashion. The Lima Group also announced it will not recognize the results of the April 22 presidential elections called by Maduro, as opposition forces won’t be participating.
What the declaration means by “coordinating efforts” is not spelled out, but suffice it to say that whatever action might be taken against Venezuela, at Washington’s urging, could potentially blow up the whole region. Venezuela’s internal situation is certainly a disaster, with hundreds of thousands of its citizens having fled to neighboring countries Brazil, Guyana and Colombia: 35,000 Venezuelans a day cross the border into Colombia. In 2017, some 550,000 Venezuelans were in Colombia, a 62% increase over the previous year, and according to the Wall Street Journal yesterday, 1.2 million Venezuelans have left their country over the past two years.
Anything short of what EIR has proposed—incorporating Venezuela into the New Silk Road with China’s proposed “win-win” cooperation to develop the whole region economically—is doomed to fail.
COLLAPSING WESTERN FINANCIAL SYSTEM
The Administration’s ‘Looney Idea’ To Sell TVA Power Lines Is Dead on Arrival
Feb. 14 (EIRNS)—Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander’s calling the Washington’s plan to sell off the Tennessee Valley Authority’s 16,000 miles of electricity transmission lines, “looney,” and is assuring his constituents that this ill-conceived scheme to “raise money” to fund infrastructure will not pass Congress. “This looney idea … seems to keep popping up regardless of who is President,” Alexander said in a Feb. 12 statement, on the day the proposed FY2019 budget was sent to Capitol Hill.
When President Obama proposed selling all of the TVA’s assets in 2013, Alexander recalled, “all it did was undermine TVA’s credit, raise interest rates on its debt, and threaten to increase electric bills for 9 million Tennessee Valley ratepayers.”
During the Great Depression, Franklin Roosevelt’s TVA brought nearly 5 million people in the Southeast United States out of poverty. It was the model for many river development projects around the world, including the largest, the Three Gorges Dam in China. To consider tearing it apart should be unthinkable.
American Intelligence Chiefs Claim Chinese Cell Phones Are Spy Tools
Feb. 14 (EIRNS)—America’s intelligence chiefs seem to have forgotten that Edward Snowden exposed the fact that the National Security Agency (NSA) can, and often does, have access to any U.S.-made cell phone to spy on its owner, even if the phone is turned off. That is likely one of the reasons that the U.S. intelligence chiefs on Feb. 13 advised against allowing China’s Huawei or ZTE to sell their phones in the U.S.—for fear of losing access to this police-state measure.
FBI Director Christopher Wray told the Senate Intelligence Committee yesterday that Huawei and ZTE are “beholden to foreign governments,” and therefore, using one of their phones “provides the capacity to maliciously modify or steal information. And it provides the capacity to conduct undetected espionage.”
AT&T was close to a deal to sell Huawei cell phones in the U.S., but threats from Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. (CFIUS) to prevent it caused the deal to fall through in January.
ZTE issued a statement: “As a publicly traded company, we are committed to adhering to all applicable laws and regulations of the United States, work with carriers to pass strict testing protocols, and adhere to the highest business standards. Our mobile phones and other devices incorporate U.S.-made chipsets, U.S.-made operating systems and other components.”
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) even introduced a bill last week that would prohibit the government from contracting with companies that use Huawei or ZTE products.
THE NEW GLOBAL ECONOMIC ORDER
Xi Stresses Multi-Generational Commitment To Build the Nation, in Spring Festival Greeting
Feb. 14 (EIRNS)—Speaking today in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, President Xi Jinping stressed the multi-generational importance of building socialism with Chinese characteristics. His greeting for the Spring Festival and lunar New Year, was directed to “all Chinese people” at home and abroad.
President Xi reviewed China’s accomplishments over the past year, in the economy, deepening reform, advancing law-based governance, improving people’s lives and fighting poverty, progress in national defense and armed forces construction, diplomacy, and strict governance over the party. These advances have “propelled the vessel of China toward new waters,” he said.
He then stressed that these achievements were made with Chinese people’s own hands, and generations of continuous hard work, as CGTN television network reports, expressing the “highest respect” for the “old generations of heroes, model workers, soldiers, and comrades” who made contributions to China’s national independence, development, and prosperity.
For the future, Xi advised that “the new era belongs to those who work hard. Happiness can only be earned by filling one’s life with endeavors.”
President Xi stressed that the endeavor of upholding and developing socialism with Chinese characteristics will take generations, even dozens of generations, of hard work.
International Space Forum Calls Space Cooperation Paramount To Fighting Poverty in Africa
Feb. 14 (EIRNS)—Leaders of African nations and international space representatives met yesterday in Nairobi for the second meeting of the African Chapter of the International Space Forum (ISF). The Forum was organized by the International Astronautical Federation (IAF), the Kenyan Ministry of Defense, and the Italian Space Agency. The IAF, a 60-year-old independent organization, is made up of space representatives from nearly every country in the world.
As reported by the IAF, the purpose of the Forum was to reach out to space developing and emerging nations in the African region. High Commissioner of Mozambique Daniel Antonio explained that space is paramount “to maintain the national sovereignty and the territorial integrity in Africa,” but also “to win the fight against poverty.” Jan Woerner, director of the European Space Agency, stressed that all African nations should “try to work together as one because global challenges need a global cooperation.”
At the conclusion of the Forum, Raul Kulichevsky of the Argentine National Commission of Space Activities announced that a new regional chapter of the Space Forum will be formed, focusing on South America, with the first meeting to take place at the end of this year in Argentina.
SCIENCE AND INFRASTRUCTURE
Former U.S. Astronaut Urges To Expand International Space Station, Bringing in China and India
Feb. 14 (EIRNS)—Speaking with Fox Business reporter Neil Cavuto on Feb. 12, retired astronaut Clayton Anderson said, “If I were the king, I would try to negotiate and figure out a way to bring China and India in with us [to the International Space Station], as well. If you work with people in space, you don’t fight with them on the ground.”
Anderson was reflecting on the FY2019 NASA budget, which had been released earlier in the day, and includes a proposal that the U.S. no longer fund the ISS after 2025. Anderson, who lived on the station for five months in 2007, was weighing options, and expressed skepticism about the value of “privatizing” orbiting laboratories. Instead, he posed the alternative of adding more space-faring partners to the project.

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