EDITORIAL

America’s True ‘Special Relationship’ Is with the Ideas of Gottfried Leibniz

Aug. 12 (EIRNS)—An over-extended and exposed British Empire deployed their Secretary of Defense, Gavin Williamson, to Washington, D.C. this week to try to jam Washington back into the “Special Relationship” straitjacket, without which their centuries-long grip on global power will disintegrate. Williamson used a major Aug. 7 policy address to the Atlantic Council think-tank in Washington, D.C. to try to rev up a full-blown Western confrontation with Russia and China, and to force-feed his audience the big lie that “the United States has never had nor will have a more reliable ally than Great Britain.”

During this past week, dangerous new provocations against Russia and China were in fact launched, including the State Department’s announcement of new sanctions against Russia, to which Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev promptly responded by warning that “if we end up with something like a ban on banking activities or the use of certain currencies, we can clearly call this a declaration of economic war … and we must absolutely respond to this war.”

But the British Empire’s gambit to retake the global initiative from China’s Belt and Road project, and again reinstate British geopolitics in its place, can only work with President Donald Trump out of the way. Here, too, the British hand behind the whole filthy Mueller/FBI operation stands exposed and is in full public view, no small thanks to LaRouche PAC’s ongoing efforts to that end. This fish truly does stink from the head.

Former top Pentagon analyst and Harvard historian Graham Allison made a useful contribution to the policy fight underway in the U.S., with a lengthy article titled “China’s Anti-Poverty Drive Has Lessons for All.” In it, Allison argues that there is no fundamental strategic rift between the national interests of the U.S. and China, and that the two countries should “work together to alleviate the debilitating poverty that continues to grind down billions of people in other parts of the world.” That, of course, means the U.S. joining the Belt and Road Initiative, and helping to reorganize the bankrupt international financial system into a New Bretton Woods, as Lyndon and Helga LaRouche have long insisted.

Allison is otherwise known as the person who coined the phrase “Thucydides trap,” which he defined as follows: “When one great power threatens to displace another, war is almost always the result—but it doesn’t have to be.”

Allison has aptly described the problem—but not its solution. The only way to ensure that such crises do not lead to war, which today would likely mean the thermonuclear extermination of the human species, is to discover and chart a trajectory of a solution which is mutually beneficial to each and all of the nations on Earth—and which an alliance of especially the U.S., China, Russia and India can bring into being. And that, of necessity, requires access to a higher domain, that of the science of physical economy, as uniquely developed by Lyndon LaRouche.

As LaRouche himself put it in the opening words of his 1993 On LaRouche’s Discovery: “The central feature of my original contribution to the Leibniz science of physical economy, is the provision of a method for addressing the causal relationship between, on the one side, individuals’ contributions to axiomatically revolutionary advances in scientific and analogous forms of knowledge, and, on the other side, consequent increases in the potential population-density of corresponding societies.”

Gottfried Leibniz was not only the founder of the science of physical economy. He was also the philosophical founding father of the anti-British U.S. Constitutional system and its commitment to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

And so we can properly say that America’s true “special relationship” always has been, and must again be, with the ideas of Gottfried Leibniz.

STRATEGIC WAR DANGER:  U.K. Defense Secretary Williamson Seeks To Force U.S. Back into ‘Special Relationship’

Aug. 12 (EIRNS)—British Defense Secretary Gavin Williamson was in Washington, D.C. earlier this week, in a major foray to keep the U.S. handcuffed into the “special relationship” with the U.K., and on a collision course with Russia and China. The British have been engaged in damage control in this regard, especially after President Trump’s July 13 visit to the U.K. and his meetings with the Queen and Prime Minister Theresa May, in which Trump was dismissive of the British agenda.

Williamson delivered a major policy address on Aug. 7 at the Atlantic Council, and then went to the Pentagon to meet with U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis. The British Defense Ministry’s website reported that “current threats to prosperity and safety, including Russia and the ongoing fight against Daesh [ISIS], were among the issues that were high on the agenda” of their discussions. Little more is known about that meeting, or about Williamson’s other activities while in the U.S., but judging by the sharp escalation in attacks on Russia and China coming from Washington over recent days, it’s likely there was a lot going on behind the scenes.

A spokesman for the Russian Embassy in London responded on Aug. 10 to Williamson’s Atlantic Council speech, that “an unusually belligerent rhetoric of Gavin Williamson sheds light on the true motives behind the forced increase in spending by NATO countries, expected to reach $1.26 trillion in 2018.”

In his Atlantic Council speech, Williamson attacked “terror-sponsoring Iran” and “rising China” and their “militarization of artificial features in the South China Sea.” But he reserved his nastiest attacks for Russia, which he characterized as “an increasingly aggressive Russia using every weapon at its disposal to advance its interests. A Russia whose use of covert operations and cyber warfare, political subversion and increased military posturing is part of a wider pattern of malign behavior.” He then referred to the unproven allegation about Russian involvement in the Novichok poisoning of former Russian GRU Col. Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia, as Moscow’s “first use of chemical weapons in Europe.”

Otherwise, the bulk of his speech focused heavily, and at times defensively, on justifying the Special Relationship and how the U.K. will remain a reliable partner into the future: “The U.S. has never had nor will have a more reliable ally than Great Britain. Others may pretend, but you will find no greater ally than us.”

Williamson concluded with an ungrammatical growl and threat: “But please never underestimate my nation, as we have changed the world time and time and time again and we will change the world in the future. For we are a nation when we realize it is in our interest or when it is right we as a nation always act.”

Russia ‘Categorically Rejects’ New U.S. Sanctions

Aug. 10 (EIRNS)—Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov spoke by phone today with Secretary Pompeo about the insane new sanctions imposed by the U.S. State Department this week, for Russia’s alleged role in the Skripal chemical weapons poisoning in the U.K.

“The Russian side expressed categorical rejection of Washington’s recently announced sanctions referring to the allegedly available information on Russia’s involvement in the so-called Skripal case,” Lavrov told Pompeo, reported Sputnik.

Lavrov said that neither the U.S. nor the U.K., nor anyone else, had provided any evidence to substantiate the accusations. Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, speaking in Kamchatka, told the press that the threatened second round of sanctions would be considered economic warfare: “The one thing I can say is, if measures like a ban on banking activities or the use of this or that currency follows, this can be clearly be described as a declaration of an economic war. And this war will have to be responded—by economic, political and, if necessary, other means. And our American partners should realize this,” reported TASS.

Russian Defense Minister Shoigu Asserts Russia Will Not Be Bullied

Aug. 12 (EIRNS)—Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu gave an interview today to Rossiya 24 TV, on the occasion of the conclusion of the Fourth International Army Games held outside Moscow. He used a recent call by the German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen to engage in dialogue with Moscow only from a “position of unity and strength,” as an opportunity to deliver a broader message to all of those who are trying to strong-arm and threaten Russia into alignment with British geopolitical intentions.

“We are open for dialogue,” Shoigu stated. “We are ready for a normal cooperation, but not at all from a position of strength. I certainly hope that the time when we could be talked to, as someone once said, as a second- or third-class country has now irretrievably passed.” Shoigu said further: “After everything Germany has done to our country, I think, they should not talk on the issue for another 200 years. Ask your grandparents about their experience of talking to Russia from the position of strength. They will probably be able to tell you.”

“We are not going to threaten anyone. We’re not going to start a war with anyone,” Shoigu continued, stating, however, that Russian President Vladimir Putin is taking unprecedented measures to make sure the military is fully ready for any untoward surprises. “We’re doing a massive job to restore our army. Yes, the time has passed when we had no funds or time for the army. We now have a totally different army. And if that frightens someone, do come visit to see how we live.”

Shoigu was alluding to the fact that, in his March 1 nationally televised Address to the Federal Assembly, President Putin announced major advances in Russian weaponry based largely on new physical principles, which altered the entire global strategic and military equation in the most fundamental way.

Shoigu also described that the International Army Games had grown in size and prestige, with teams from 32 different countries competing in 28 different military disciplines. “Did we expect these games to grow to this size? We didn’t think it, but we dreamed of it. And now there are tens of millions following this amazing contest around the world. They watch and think: best not mess with these guys.”

U.S. Space Force Is Conceived as Geopolitical Weapon Against Russia and China

Aug. 10 (EIRNS)—The U.S. Space Force, as announced by Vice President Mike Pence yesterday at the Pentagon, has been conceived on the basis of the National Defense Strategy, which sees Russia and China as geopolitical rivals and “revisionist powers.” Rather than seeing space as a domain for human exploration for the benefit of the whole of humanity, the policy sees it as another domain of “great power” competition and even warfare.

At the same time that Pence was speaking Aug. 9, the Pentagon also released a 15-page report to the Congress on the organization and structure of the military space components within the DOD. The report declares that the U.S. must “dominate” in space against its “adversaries.”

“U.S. space systems have historically maintained a technological advantage over those of potential adversaries, those potential adversaries are now actively developing ways to deny our use of space in a crisis,” the Pentagon report states. It directly names Russia and China as space threats to the U.S. “China and Russia, our strategic competitors, are explicitly pursuing space warfighting capabilities to neutralize U.S. space capabilities during a time of conflict,” it says. “Russia and China perceive a need to offset any U.S. military advantage derived from military, civil, or commercial space systems and are increasingly considering attacks against satellite systems as part of their future warfare doctrine. Both will continue to pursue a full range of anti-satellite weapons as a means to reduce U.S. military effectiveness.”

This perspective was also reflected in Pence’s remarks, in which he claimed that competitors and potential adversaries such as China and Russia have developed new weaponry geared toward taking down U.S. satellites. “As their actions made clear, our adversaries have transformed space into a warfighting domain already,” Pence said. “The U.S. will not shrink from this challenge.”

The Russian Foreign Ministry issued a statement in response, which warned that “a military confrontation in space may be as dangerous as the nuclear arms race set off by Washington in the middle of the last century.” It slammed the U.S. military space program as “adventurism” that may have “the most negative impact on the state of international security,” reported Sputnik.

Saudis Bomb Yemen School Bus, Killing Dozens—and Claim It Was a Legitimate Target

Aug. 10 (EIRNS)—Saudi Arabia has committed yet another outrage against Yemen Aug. 9, this time with an air strike, or air strikes, in Saada province which hit a school bus traveling through a market square, killing some 43-50 people and wounding up to 77. About half of the victims were children.

“Our shops were open and shoppers were walking around as usual. All of those who died were residents, children and shop owners,” eyewitness Moussa Abdullah, who was being treated in hospital for wounds, told Reuters. The International Committee of the Red Cross posted a tweet that its medical team at the ICRC-supported hospital in Saada had received the bodies of 29 children, all under 15 years old. The hospital also received 48 wounded people, among them 30 children. Reports from other hospitals were not available at this time. Abdul-Ghani Sareeh, from the Saada health department, told Reuters: “A bus carrying children was targeted today while they were coming from summer school, resulting in 43 martyrs and almost 63 wounded.” Johannes Bruwer, head of the ICRC delegation in Yemen tweeted that most of the victims were under 10 years of age.

The Saudis claimed that the strike was legitimate and accused the Houthis of using civilians as human shields.

The Saudi cover may be vanishing, however, as even the U.S. urged Riyadh to investigate the attack. “We are certainly concerned about the reports that there was an attack that resulted in the deaths of civilians. We call on the Saudi-led coalition to conduct a thorough and transparent investigation into the incident,” State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said yesterday.

The Russian Foreign Ministry stated, “A thorough and comprehensive investigation of these tragic incidents is essential,” and stressed: “We continue to believe the speedy cessation of bloodshed in Yemen and the settlement of all existing disagreements at the negotiating table … is the only reasonable way to put an end to the suffering of peaceful Yemenis.”

THE NEW GLOBAL ECONOMIC ORDER

Graham Allison Calls for U.S.-China Understanding To End Poverty Globally

Aug. 12 (EIRNS)—Graham Allison, the Harvard University defense specialist who coined the phrase “Thucydides Trap” and who is a frequent critic of the dangers of nuclear confrontation with Russia, penned a lengthy article published in China Daily under the title: “China’s Anti-Poverty Drive Has Lessons for All.” Allison provides a lengthy, laudatory review of everything China has done to roll back poverty. “Has any anti-poverty initiative in history ever lifted more people from abject poverty than the national economic development program China launched four decades ago by opening up its economy to the world?” Allison asks. He concludes his article with the following appeal:

“The Chinese people are rightfully proud of what their individual efforts and the leadership of their government have done. But they also recognize the fact that this was possible only because of the international economic and security order in Asia that the U.S. constructed in the aftermath of World War II and maintained for the past seven decades. That order enabled all the Asian miracles—and none more than modern China itself.

“Could an understanding that such a remarkable outcome could only have been produced by cooperative actions provide insights into ways the two countries might work together to alleviate the debilitating poverty that continues to grind down billions of people in other parts of the world? And if both could cooperate in such an ennobling and mutually beneficial undertaking, perhaps that experience could stimulate more imagination about other ways each can protect and advance its own vital national interests without war.”

Five States Bordering Caspian Sea Sign a Landmark Deal

Aug. 12 (EIRNS)—After more than 20 years of diplomatic efforts, the five Caspian littoral nations—Russia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan—met in Aktau, Kazakhstan and agreed upon a legal framework for sharing the world’s largest inland body of water, which bridges Asia and Europe, and has reserves of oil and gas, and is a habitat for sturgeon, Britain’s Guardian reported.

Kazakhstan’s host President Nursultan Nazarbayev said before the signing, that the leaders were “participants in an historic event…. We can admit that consensus on the status of the sea was hard to reach and not immediate, the talks lasted more than 20 years and called for a lot of joint efforts from the parties.”

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said: “Today we have taken a very important step, but we should recognize there are more important issues that need to be addressed.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin said in his address, “The signing of the Convention opens a new stage in the relations of the Caspian states and allows us to secure prosperity and provide for dynamic development of our common region together,” according to the Kremlin website.

China Banking Regulators Clamp Down on Speculation, Foster Productive Lending

Aug. 12 (EIRNS)—The People’s Bank of China (the central bank) issued a second-quarter report which makes it clear that the Chinese government will continue to crack down on speculative financial activity, and stay the course of financing the productive economy. The PBOC report said that “the country’s prudent monetary policy will be kept in neutral and be neither too tight nor too loose,” according to Xinhua Aug. 11. “The central bank will also stand firm on structural deleveraging, intensify efforts in the tough battle against financial risks, and forestall systemic financial risks.” The PBOC report also said they will “deepen market-oriented reform for interest rates and exchange rates, actively open up the financial sector in an orderly manner and raise the sectors vigor and resilience.”

At the same time, the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission (CBIRC) said Aug. 11 that it is encouraging banks “to increase funding to meet the financing demand of the real economy,” Xinhua reported. “It also urged the institutions to make full use of current favorable conditions including abundant liquidity and declining financing costs to raise their financing support for the real economy. Banks have been instructed to ensure financing demand of projects under construction and raise funding support for weak areas in the country infrastructure,” the CBIRC statement read. The Commission is also encouraging banks to write off their bad loans, “to create more room for increasing lending.”

COLLAPSING WESTERN FINANCIAL SYSTEM

President Erdogan Says Turkey Is Gearing Up for Trade in National Currencies

Aug. 12 (EIRNS)—Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan gave a series of speeches in the Black Sea region on Aug. 11, in which he angrily denounced the Trump Administration’s announcement of doubling of tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from Turkey. He also stated that Turkey would be working on agreements for trade in national currencies with other trading partners—which coincides with a growing discussion in Russia, China and elsewhere on alternatives to the collapsing trans-Atlantic financial system.

“We are gearing up for trade in national currencies with China, Russia, Iran, Ukraine, which account for the largest bilateral trade volume,” Erdogan stated. “If European countries want to get rid of the dollar pressure, we are ready to create a similar system with them,” Anadolu Agency quotes Erdogan as saying.

Erdogan also said that President Donald Trump’s announcement of increased tariffs was tantamount to a “missile” launched against Turkey, which is a NATO ally of the U.S.’s. He said that “I call out to those in the U.S. It is a shame. You are trading a strategic, NATO ally for a pastor”—a reference to the American pastor Andrew Brunson recently arrested by Turkish authorities on charges of involvement in the July 2016 attempted military coup d’état in Turkey, whom the Trump Administration is demanding be released. An unnamed U.S. National Security Council spokesman said on Aug. 10 that Turkey has “much to lose” if they keep holding Brunson, which raises the question of National Security Advisor John Bolton’s possible involvement in the Trump Administration’s misguided attacks against Turkey.

In another of his Aug. 11 speeches, Erdogan stated: “You cannot tame our people with threats…. Those who assume they can bring us to our knees through economic manipulation, don’t know our nation at all.”

U.S. POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC

Jatras Charges Enemies of Trump Push Sanctions To Derail Senator Paul’s Russia Mission

Aug. 10 (EIRNS)—Retired U.S. State Department official Jim Jatras charged that the enemies of President Donald Trump helped launch new sanctions against Russia to undermine U.S. Sen. Rand Paul’s bid to mend relations during his trip to Russia this week. The Russian Federation Council’s Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Sen. Konstantin Kosachev said yesterday that the new U.S. sanctions will harm bilateral relations, just days after he had accepted Senator Paul’s invitation to send a delegation of fellow lawmakers to Washington. On Aug. 8, Paul said he delivered a letter from Trump to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s administration, regarding the many areas in which the two countries could work together.

“This baseless ‘finding’ by the State Department, with heavy pressure from Congress, appears to be an attempt to blunt any possible progress towards better relations with Moscow stemming from Sen. Rand Paul’s visit and his delivery of Trump’s letter to Putin,” Jatras told Sputnik Aug. 9. He continued that Trump’s enemies within the bureaucracy—including some of his own appointees—are trying to undermine the President’s overtures to Moscow “and further erode his executive authority. Besides blocking every possible path to rapprochement with Russia, this is another step to setting Trump up for removal from office,” he said.

Jatras acknowledged that the harsh second set of sanctions that have been announced looked almost certain to be imposed after the November midterm Congressional elections.

“It’s hard to see at this juncture how that will be avoided. Russia will not submit to inspections, which the U.S. is arrogantly demanding, as if she were some pipsqueak country like Libya,” he said.

“In the absence of capitulating to the U.S. demand, which Russia will not do, legally Trump can waive the sanctions,” Jatras said. “But I believe this is part of the political trap being laid for him.

“If the harsher measures go into effect in November, it is hard to overstate how dangerous that will be. These are the kind of things that countries do just one step from totally breaking diplomatic relations in advance of war,” he said. “In a word, this is insanity. What’s perhaps worst is that this political warfare is being conducted with a total disregard for the truth, much less an honest attempt to find it,” he said. “It’s worse than a presumption of guilt—it’s a positive, unambiguous verdict of guilt.”

Bruce Ohr on Hot Seat for Unlawful, Anti-Trump Contact with ‘Ex’ MI6 Agent Steele

Aug. 11 (EIRNS)—Bruce Ohr, demoted from his fourth-ranking post in the Department of Justice, but still employed there, is the target of several investigative actions aimed at exposing more about his unlawful and extended collusion against President Donald Trump, with British “ex”-MI6 foreign intelligence agent Christopher Steele.

On Aug. 28, Ohr is to testify at a closed-door hearing before the joint House Committees of Judiciary and of House Oversight and Government, which was announced yesterday by Rep. Mark Meadows, an Oversight and Reform Committee member. That committee’s Chairman Rep. Trey Gowdy, said on Fox News yesterday that they will issue subpoenas if the Justice Department tries to block questioning Ohr and others. Gowdy made specific references to the reports that Ohr had repeated contact with Steele, after the FBI had officially cut Steele off as a source. So, Ohr became a conduit into the Justice Department for Steele. All the while, Mrs. Nellie Ohr was working for Fusion GPS, the company which had commissioned Steele to produce an anti-Trump dossier.

Also yesterday, Judicial Watch head Tom Fitton, in his weekly YouTube update, detailed the lawsuit filed by his organization this week against the Justice Department, to compel it to turn over documents connected with the Ohr-Steele collusion.

President Donald Trump early this morning tweeted about the general FBI/DOJ mess, and their withholding documentation.

“Why isn’t the FBI giving Andrew McCabe text massages to Judicial Watch or appropriate governmental authorities. FBI said they won’t give up even one (I may have to get involved, DO NOT DESTROY). What are they hiding? McCabe wife took big campaign dollars from Hillary people….

“Will the FBI ever recover it’s once stellar reputation, so badly damaged by Comey, McCabe, Peter S and his lover, the lovely Lisa Page, and other top officials now dismissed or fired? So many of the great men and women of the FBI have been hurt by these clowns and losers!”

SCIENCE AND INFRASTRUCTURE

The Parker Solar Probe Is On Its Way to the Sun

Aug. 12 (EIRNS)—NASA’s Parker Solar Probe lifted off this morning at 3:31 to start its journey to the Sun. On the way, in early October, it will fly by Venus, to get a gravity assist that will slow it down, and trim the spacecraft’s trajectory so it will orbit the Sun. This first Venus fly-by will position it to come as close as 15 million miles to the Sun in early November. The Parker Solar Probe will make six more Venus fly-bys, each one lowering the spacecraft’s orbit, until its aphelion (the point in its elliptical orbit farthest from the Sun), no longer reaches as far as Venus. On the spacecraft’s 24th orbit of the Sun, its closest approach brings it 3.8 million miles from the surface of the Sun, inside the outer atmosphere layer—the corona.

Scientists hope to be able to solve 60-year-old solar mysteries, such as the formation of the solar wind, and the heating of the corona, which is hotter than the internal layers of the Sun. These characteristics of the Sun’s activity were hypothesized by Eugene Parker 60 years ago, and the 91-year-old scientist, who virtually invented the science of heliophysics, was present for this morning’s launch of the probe.

The mission is designed to last seven years, but project manager Andy Driesman said at the pre-flight briefing that he hopes there will be an extension of the mission so it can operate until its fuel runs out. Then, he supposes, it would eventually break up into pieces and perhaps a carbon disk will float around the Sun until the end of the Solar System.