FRIDAY, OCTOBER 18, 2019 Volume 6, Number 207 EIR Daily Alert Service P.O. Box 17390, Washington, DC 20041-0390

• The Hour Has Struck
• Trump Team Wins Five-Day Ceasefire From Turkey, Followed by Permanent Ceasefire
• Erdogan and Putin To Meet on Oct. 22, as Heavy U.S., Russian Diplomacy Under Way
• Rand Paul Proposes U.S. Should Hold Talks With Syria and Turkey on Kurds
• The U.S. Congress, Once Again, Steps Forward To Defend the British Imperial Order
• Hong Kong ‘Democratic’ Opposition Joins the Mob, Drives Carrie Lam Out of Legislature Building
• State Department Orders Chinese Diplomats To Report All Meetings
• Steps Underway To Renationalize Britain’s Northern Rail Network
• Nation of Georgia Will Host Third ‘Tbilisi Silk Road Forum’ This Month
• Russia’s Africa Policy Is Not in Competition With China or Europe, Affirms Kremlin
• U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry Set To Promote Small Modular Reactors in Europe
• Phase Three of the Coup Against Trump So Far-Zilch and Many People With Their on Fire

EDITORIAL

The Hour Has Struck

Oct. 17 (EIRNS)—In most periods, history allows little change for the better over the short term, and the wisest minds patiently prepare for the opportunities which the future will present. Then come those other, rarer times where decades or longer are thrown into the balance over mere weeks or days—revolutionary times. Two stirring video interviews just released by LaRouchePAC—on Syria and the greater prospects for peace and Eurasian development—demonstrate that these are indeed revolutionary times: one by Hussein Askary, EIR Arabic Desk, and international Schiller Institute spokesman (“Peace Breaks Out In Syria: An Interview with Hussein Askary”); and the other by Virginia Commonwealth Sen. Richard Black (R) (“Interview with Senator Black: The Real Story of What’s Happening Syria, Not the Fake News Version”).

Now that President Donald Trump is finally free to fulfill his campaign promise to extract the U.S. from the endless, no-win wars of Bush and Obama, and instead to negotiate peace with Russia and all other parties, a revolution of hope is being launched. It has seized the Middle East, and the Americans who elected him President for that reason, along with many who did not vote for him. (At the same moment when Gallup lies that 52% of Americans want President Trump impeached and removed from office.)

Now Americans are called on to expose and defeat the treasonous impeachment farce, and EIR will continue to expose all the lies and dirty intelligence operations behind it—all of them committed ultimately on the orders of the financier-oligarchs centered in the City of London, such as Bank of England Governor, Mr. Green Finance Mark Carney.

But the living legacy of the late American genius Lyndon LaRouche tells us that we must go further, and we must do it now. The task is more than just overcoming geopolitics, nor is it possible to simply stop there. The present situation is a unique opportunity to ground peace in economic recovery and economic reconstruction of America and of the world.

It was just such an opportunity that Lyndon LaRouche saw in the collapse of the European communist (Warsaw Pact) system over the years 1989-1991. He seized on the opportunity he saw, even if almost no one else saw it clearly then, to overcome economic decay in the West and Eastern Europe, while simultaneously making development possible in the so-called Third World. He fought tenaciously, even from the prison cell where he was unjustly confined, to bring this about. As one man, with his wife and a few friends, he carried this battle to every continent. He saw allies assassinated, like German banker Alfred Herrhausen—but he fought on. It took the combined forces of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Presidents George H.W. Bush and François Mitterrand to defeat this one man’s initiative for what he had named the “European Productive Triangle.” It was a vast infrastructural plan to tie together the most productive centers of Europe, launch high-technology development there, and spin it off into Eastern Europe, Asia and beyond.

He lost then, but the idea he championed was adopted as China’s policy by her new President Xi Jinping in 2013, after many years of prior discussion in China inspired by Lyndon and Helga LaRouche. In just the past six years, it has profoundly changed the world, among other things bringing never-before-seen hope to Africa.

Now we face an even greater opportunity. The forces which crushed LaRouche’s plan then still exist, but they are vastly weaker, and they are off-balance. The opportunity is here for the 21st-century version of Franklin Roosevelt’s recovery plan, which Lyndon LaRouche expounded in his “Four Laws” and elsewhere (see EIR, June 13, 2014, “Four New Laws To Save the U.S.A. Now! Not an Option: An Immediate Necessity”).

Internationally, the opportunity exists now (and for how long?) for the great powers of the United States, Russia, China and India to create a new credit system geared for world high-technology development, featuring massive capital exports from the developed sector to the underdeveloped, made possible by long-term, low-interest loans under a gold-reserve dollar system of relatively fixed exchange rates.

This can be done now—the forces exist. And it must be done now. Whatever your favorite media may or may not be telling you and your contacts, the financial crisis is in process of breaking out. The only answers lie along the directions LaRouche has plotted out. Take heed!

STRATEGIC WAR DANGER

Trump Team Wins Five-Day Ceasefire from Turkey, Followed by Permanent Ceasefire

Oct. 17 (EIRNS)—After more than four hours of negotiations, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence and his team got Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to agree to a five-day ceasefire to allow Kurdish forces to withdraw from a 20-mile buffer zone to be established in Syria south of the Turkish border. Although the Kurds were not party to the negotiation, Vice President Pence said they had signed on to it.

Pence said the Turkish ceasefire would become permanent once the Kurdish forces withdrew, and that U.S. sanctions against Turkey would end once that permanent ceasefire was in effect, according to the White House transcript of his remarks today.

Erdogan and Putin To Meet on Oct. 22, as Heavy U.S., Russian Diplomacy Under Way

Oct. 17 (EIRNS)—Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Oct. 22 in Sochi to discuss Syria, after Putin made the invitation in their phone call on Oct. 15.

At the same time, Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar met with U.S. National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien on Oct. 16 in Ankara, where they discussed the latest developments in northern Syria. Turkey’s Chief of Staff Gen. Yasar Güler discussed the latest developments with British Chief of the General Staff Gen. Nick Carter on the same day.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said yesterday Russia will continue efforts to broker dialogue between Turkish and Syrian authorities on ways to improve the situation along their border. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu responded to Lavrov’s statement, saying: “Russia made this statement with good intentions. It can express readiness to cooperate with the [Bashar al-Assad] regime in Syria. It can show goodwill, calling for control over more areas in Syria, like it was with Manbij. This is not the first time that Moscow has shown such an approach. The Russian President earlier invited Tayyip Erdogan to discuss all these issues,” he said, reported TASS, citing the official Anadolu Agency. Cavusoglu stated that the recognition of Turkey’s “rightful concern about ensuring national security” is crucial.

Rand Paul Proposes U.S. Should Hold Talks with Syria and Turkey on Kurds

Oct. 17 (EIRNS)—Republican Sen. Rand Paul (KY) argued for the U.S. to get Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to begin cooperating to settle the issue of Kurds in northern Syria.

“The war is largely over, Assad stays,” Paul said, according to TASS yesterday “So really, if we are going to be realistic about this and we want to protect the Kurds, maybe the diplomatic arena has got to be simplified. Now essentially you have Turkey on one side and Syria on the other…. I think somebody from the State Department that’s involved with diplomacy ought to be saying why aren’t we using our leverage to get Turkey and Assad to talk.”

He said the U.S. should “acknowledge that someone’s got to talk to Assad. If we did, the goal would actually be to allow the Kurds to live in northeastern Syria, similar to the way the Kurds live in Iraq. It’s not always easy there, it’s been very messy and there’ve been a lot of problems. But currently, the Iraqi Kurds trade with the Turks and have a fairly decent and robust trade. Over the last ten years, it’s actually increased,” the Senator underlined.

“I think we should look at it as an opportunity, as a breakthrough diplomatically,” Paul emphasized.

The U.S. Congress, Once Again, Steps Forward To Defend the British Imperial Order

Oct. 17 (EIRNS)—In 2018, the U.S. Congress instructed the U.S. Institute for Peace, to facilitate a bipartisan Syrian Study Group to make strategic findings about the Syrian conflict and the U.S. role. The Congressional initiative was spearheaded by former Sen. John McCain (R) and Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D.) The clear intent was to undermine the President’s commitment to ending regime change wars, usurping that function from Donald Trump and turning it over to a Congressional Committee similar to British parliamentary procedures.

The current Congressional leaders heading the group are Senators Mitt Romney (R) and Jeanne Shaheen. The leaders of the study were from the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), Dana Stroul and Michael Singh. The Institute was originally birthed by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) which says much about its disposition. Singh served on Obama’s National Security Council as its chief analyst on the region.

Their final report, released at a press conference on the same day, Sept. 26, that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced an impeachment inquiry of Donald Trump, calls for a permanent U.S. presence in Syria, continued partition of the country, and continued war. The Study Group has been taking shots at Trump ever since he announced that he wanted all troops out of Syria. The group’s agitational campaign has also succeeded in brainwashing members of Congress that they, not the President, are the means to sound foreign policy. This group’s work definitely featured in the shameful 354-60 “bipartisan vote” in the House yesterday, to rebuke the President for pulling out of Syria.

On Wednesday afternoon, Oct. 16, Nancy Pelosi continued her Jacobin antics at the White House itself. The President had called a meeting with Congressional leaders to brief them on his Syria strategy. Pelosi and Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) immediately began challenging the President’s policy, with Pelosi standing and stating, “with you all roads lead to Putin,” who, she claimed, Trump had made the controller of the Middle East. Trump then allegedly called her a “third-rate politician” at which point Schumer, Pelosi, and Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD) stormed out, repeating other staged stunts conducted previously when they had been invited to the White House. Other Democrats attended as did Republicans, who stated they had an extremely useful discussion with the President.

Hong Kong ‘Democratic’ Opposition Joins the Mob, Drives Carrie Lam Out of Legislature Building

Oct. 17 (EIRNS)—Carrie Lam attempted to present her third annual policy proposal to the Legislature on Oct. 16, but the so-called “pro-democracy” opposition legislators effectively joined the Jacobin mobs on the streets by interrupting Lam’s speech, driving her out of the chambers. She instead presented her program to the nation by a video address. On Thursday, Oct. 17, the legislature held a session for discussion of the program proposals, but the disrupters again forced the session to shut down.

Lam’s proposals did not give in to the lawless mobs’ demands that she resign, nor to break the Basic Law and impose direct elections, nor to set up a virtual alternative government (as demanded by the last British colonial governor Chris Patten) to investigate the police and the riots.

What she did address is the economic crisis and especially the horrendous housing crisis in Hong Kong, where the real estate moguls have driven rents into the stratosphere. She proposed an emergency fund of $641 million to build 10,000 transitional homes in the next three years for those on the waiting list for public housing. She also said the “Lands Resumption Ordinance” would be invoked to “take back sites being hoarded by developers and use them for housing, an idea floated by pro-establishment politicians and endorsed by Chinese state media,” as reported in South China Morning Post.

Meanwhile, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the “Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act of 2019” by a voice vote on Oct. 16. It is expected to pass in the Senate, but must get Trump’s signature to become law (or a Congressional override of any veto). The law mandates that the U.S. must approve annually the Hong Kong government’s adherence to the anti-China mob’s version of human rights and “freedom,” or the U.S. could cut off the special treatment of Hong Kong as a free banking zone—another case of the U.S. shooting itself in the foot in order to contain China. It also calls for sanctions on individuals held responsible for the crime of opposing mob violence and regime change.

U.S. POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC

State Department Orders Chinese Diplomats To Report All Meetings

Oct. 17 (EIRNS)—The State Department called a telephone “special briefing” on background (i.e., the names of the officials are to be kept secret) on yesterday, announcing: “Starting from today, the State Department is going to be requiring that all of the P.R.C. foreign missions—their embassy and their various consulates around the United States—will have to notify the Department of State in advance of official meetings with state officials, official meetings with local and municipal officials, official visits to educational institutions, and official visits to research institutions.”

The briefers claim that the Chinese do not need “permission” for the meetings, but they must pre-report them to State. What sort of punishment will be meted out if the order is not followed was not specified.

This is not only an attack on China. Given the anti-China hysteria being instigated across the U.S.—what FBI Director Christopher Wray calls the “all society” offensive—any American institution or individual in contact with the Chinese representatives in the U.S. is being forewarned that Big Brother is watching.

The briefers claimed the only intent of this drastic action is to be “reciprocal” with China, claiming that “in China U.S. diplomats do not have unfettered access to a range of folks that are important for us to do our job there. That includes local and provincial-level officials, academic institutions, research institutes, so on and so forth.”

China’s Foreign Ministry “lodged a solemn representation” to the U.S., Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told the press, seeking for the State Department to withdraw the “erroneous” restrictions on Chinese diplomats, and denying that China had similar requirements for U.S. diplomats and consular officers, Global Times reported today. The Chinese Embassy in the U.S. said on Twitter that the restrictions “are in violation of the Vienna Convention.”

Chinese Ambassador to the U.S. Cui Tiankai made the observation that “My good friend [former] Ambassador Baucus visited all Chinese provinces during his three-year tenure in China. Ambassador Branstad has a similar plan. I have been here for six and a half years, but I have not been able to set foot in every American state.”

COLLAPSING WESTERN FINANCIAL SYSTEM

Steps Underway To Renationalize Britain’s Northern Rail Network

Oct. 17 (EIRNS)—The Conservative Party-led British government is now being forced to renationalize Northern Rail, which had been demanded for years by the Labour Party. Transport Secretary Grant Shapps yesterday told the House of Commons transport select committee that the first steps have been taken towards taking the Northern Rail network back into public hands. He said he had asked the Northern franchisee, the German-owned Arriva, and the government’s operator of last resort to draw up proposals to improve the service. He said nearly half the trains run late.  “I entirely believe we cannot carry on thinking it is OK for trains not to arrive, or Sunday services not to be in place—that simply has to change,” reported the Guardian. Part of the blame can be laid on the condition of the rail infrastructure, which is the property of the state-owned Network Rail.

Northern will be the second service to be renationalized under the Conservative government, following the collapse of Virgin Trains East Coast, now run as LNER under the Department for Transport’s operator of last resort.

THE NEW GLOBAL ECONOMIC ORDER

Nation of Georgia Will Host Third ‘Tbilisi Silk Road Forum’ This Month

Oct. 17 (EIRNS)—Led by Deputy Minister of Economy and Sustainable Development of Georgia Genadi Arveladze, the Tbilisi Silk Road Forum (a separate initiative by the Georgian government, not related to China) will take place in Tbilisi on Oct. 22-23, bringing together about 2,000 delegates from 60 countries, including senior officials, businessmen and experts, according to Trend news agency on Oct. 11. “We will discuss challenges and opportunities of the Georgian business sector and inform the forum participants about the investment potential of the country. We will also focus on the development of the Silk Road transport corridor,” said Arveladze.

The Tbilisi Silk Road Forum, whose theme this year is “Partnership for Global Impact,” is being held for the third time. The first Tbilisi Silk Road Forum, a biennial event, was held in October 2015. It aroused great international interest and was attended by representatives of the business sector from 50 countries and official delegations from 34 countries.

The development of the Tbilisi Silk Road Forum initiative is one of the important priorities of the Georgian government, which makes significant investments in this sphere. In this regard, the main infrastructure, which is being built nationwide, is an integral part of the Silk Road, including the East-West highway, the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway line, and the port of Anaklia.

Russia’s Africa Policy Is Not in Competition with China or Europe, Affirms Kremlin

Oct. 17 (EIRNS)—Moscow does not seek any competition with Europe and China in Africa, in organizing the Russia-Africa Summit in Sochi, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Oct. 16. The inaugural Russia-Africa Summit and business forum will be held in Sochi on Oct. 23-24.

“This is not about competition, this is about mutually beneficial cooperation. Russia has always been present in Africa, this is a highly important continent. Russia has something to offer to African nations in terms of mutually beneficial cooperation,” Peskov told reporters, when asked whether the organization of the summit showed Russia’s intention to compete with Western nations and with China in Africa.

Peskov praised Russia’s friendship with many African nations. According to TASS today, 47 Africa nation leaders, have confirmed their participation; Russia invited all 54 heads of state or government on the continent. In addition, he said, “Eight large African integration associations and organizations will take part.” The summit will be co-chaired by Presidents Vladimir Putin of Russia and Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt. The Egyptian President holds the rotating presidency of the African Union from February 2019-February 2020.

SCIENCE AND INFRASTRUCTURE

U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry Set To Promote Small Modular Reactors in Europe

Oct. 17 (EIRNS)—U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry will be in Brussels to promote small modular reactor (SMR) concepts to European Union prospects. Perry will be a featured speaker during the “1st U.S.-EU High-Level Industrial Forum on Small Modular Reactors,” which will be held Oct. 21, Power magazine reported.

Last November, EIR, writing in “Mass Production of Modular Nuclear Reactors To Industrialize Developing Countries Until Fusion Power Comes Online” (EIR, Nov. 16, 2018), had enumerated the potentials of SMRs to proliferate throughout the power-starved world with the joint participation of major nuclear power generation countries. The article also reported the developments in this area achieved by the Oregon-based company, NuScale Power.

Power, reporting on the Oct. 21 U.S.-EU forum on SMRs, wrote that these small modular reactors “can be used for power generation, process heat, desalination, and other industrial uses. SMRs can employ a range of possible coolants including light water, liquid metal, or molten salt, depending on the technology.”

OTHER

Phase Three of the Coup against Trump So Far—Zilch and Many People with Their Hair on Fire

Oct. 17 (EIRNS)—While it is always dangerous to provide analysis on the basis of leaks, you have to assume that the Democrats are giving the best they got and more in their leaks about the secret impeachment hearings concerning President Donald Trump, which have taken place each day Monday through Thursday this week, and that analysis shows that, once again, they have come up with a totally dry hole with respect to any misconduct by the President: zilch, nada, nothing. But their accompanying information warfare operation, featuring cherry-picked leaks and dubious opinion polls, seems to be having an impact.

The new narrative, it will be recalled, is to substitute Ukraine for Russia in the meme: Trump received dirt from a foreign source to influence the election. The country spent two years on the bogus tale concerning Russia. The new piece of pulp fiction being written by Representatives Adam Schiff and Nancy Pelosi says: Trump pressured Ukraine for dirt on Joe Biden and information about Ukrainian involvement in the multi-foreign state/U.S. intelligence community dirty deeds on behalf of Hillary Clinton in 2016, in order to help his 2020 election prospects. In the course of that, he victimized a wonderful U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, by causing her firing and conducted a rogue foreign policy of his own, outside official channels.

However, what appears to be emerging as fact goes something as follows. Kurt Volker, the President’s envoy to Ukraine and the coordination point for the Congressional Ukraine Caucus’s/U.S. intelligence community’s determination to continue the war in East Ukraine by providing lethal military aid to Kiev, realized that the President was not about to send more lethal aid to the country, because Trump believed, correctly, that the country had “tried to take him down” and was completely and historically corrupt.

It is well known that since the 2014 Ukraine coup, millions of dollars of U.S. aid have simply disappeared into the pockets of various oligarchs and political operatives. Trump was skeptical that the new President, Volodymyr Zelensky, was serious about reform. Trump told the team attending Zelensky’s May 20 inauguration, which included Volker, European Union Ambassador Gordon Sondland, and Energy Secretary Rick Perry to talk with attorney Rudy Giuliani about this.

Giuliani had been investigating Ukraine’s role in the illegal targeting of the President’s 2016 campaign and Ukrainian corruption in general for a long time. He interviewed two former Ukrainian prosecutor generals about this, back in January 2019, confirming previous stories published by Politico about DNC contractor Alexandra Chalupa’s targeting of Paul Manafort in collaboration with what Chalupa says were various journalists, Ukrainian government officials, and private intelligence agencies.  These investigations were coordinated with the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine. Giuliani’s investigation had nothing to do with electoral politics. It was conducted to rebut Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s anticipated report on the President.

In the course of his investigation, Giuliani came across information concerning Hunter Biden receiving $50,000 a month for sitting on the Board of the corrupt Ukrainian oil and gas venture Burisma, including statements from former Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin that Joe Biden got him fired because he refused to close down the series of corruption cases involving Burisma. Shokin’s successor as Prosecutor General, Yuriy Lutskenko, said that Shokin was not corrupt, as alleged by Joe Biden, and that Ambassador Yovanovitch had provided him with a “do not prosecute” list which included Ukrainian officials involved in the 2016 election activities in support of Clinton.

While not endorsing running Ukraine policy in conjunction with Giuliani, Volker and Sondland realized that Trump was not at all interested in further interventions in Ukraine unless the new government could give some assurances about combatting corruption.

Former National Security Adviser John Bolton, however, went nuts. Already involved in a fratricidal war with the Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Bolton dispatched his deputy Fiona Hill to monitor and report on Trump’s back-channel negotiations through Volker, Sondland, and Perry. Bolton and Hill attacked the State Department-centered crew as being rubes who so endangered U.S. national security by their ignorance that Hill suggested launching a counterintelligence investigation. Many in Washington suggest that Bolton or those close to him are the faux whistleblowers in the impeachment drive.

While critical of Giuliani’s involvement, both Volker and Sondland have testified that the President was emphatic that there was no quid pro quos regarding lethal aid and investigations of the Bidens, or even of cooperation with the Justice Department’s investigation of Ukraine. Other State Department officials have been brought into the mix to yelp about the fact that Trump is running back-channels and his own foreign policy, and is ignoring them whilst defending Ambassador Yovanovitch.

To reiterate: There is nothing illegal or impeachable or even unusual in any of this. Numerous Presidents, best exemplified by Franklin Roosevelt, ran multiple back-channels around the permanent Washington bureaucracy to the country’s enormous benefit.

In the meantime, Judicial Watch and others say they have well-sourced claims that that Yovanovitch, while U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, ordered the monitoring in Washington of social media accounts associated with journalists who support Trump. “Yovanovitch reportedly ordered monitoring keyed to the following search terms: Biden, Giuliani, Soros and Yovanovitch,” Judicial Watch states in their press release about their FOIA request to the State Department about the monitoring. They believe that the following people were being monitored: Jack Posobiec, One America News host; Donald Trump, Jr., son of President Donald Trump; Laura Ingraham, Fox News host; Sean Hannity, Fox News host; Michael McFaul, President Obama’s Ambassador to Russia; Dan Bongino, Fox News contributor; Ryan Saavedra, reporter at the Daily Wire news agency; Rudy Giuliani, President Trump’s personal attorney; Dr. Sebastian Gorka, former strategist for President Trump; John Solomon, Executive Vice President at The Hill; Lou Dobbs, Fox Business host; Pamela Geller, political commentator; Sara Carter, Investigative Reporter and Fox News contributor.

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