FRIDAY, JANUARY 10, 2020

Volume 7, Number 7

EIR Daily Alert Service

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

• Should One More U.S. Soldier Die in Southwest Asia? It’s Time To Declare Victory and Get Out Now!
• Iran Warned of Its Missile Strike Ahead of Time
• Askary Tells Syria Times, British Empire War-Mongers Seek To Stop New Silk Road in Southwest Asia
• In Germany, ‘No War! Thank You Mr. President!’
• Senior Italian Diplomat Says Russia, Egypt and Turkey Should Decide on Libya
• Senators Question Where Did the Intelligence Come From To Justify the Soleimani Killing
• Mexico Proposes Optimistic CELAC Agenda, Especially in Space and Science-Technology Cooperation
• Dairy Bankruptcies Show Nasty Wall Street Side of U.S. Economic Destruction, Farm Crisis
• Nine-Year Low in Chinese Investments in Europe and U.S., May Go Up From Here
• Scientists Develop a New Process To Capture Deuterium for Fusion Fuel

EDITORIAL

Should One More U.S. Soldier Die in Southwest Asia? It’s Time To Declare Victory and Get Out Now!

Jan. 9 (EIRNS)—The majority of Americans agree with 2016 Presidential candidate Donald Trump that the 2003 invasion of Iraq was the worst mistake in American history—both among those who voted for Donald Trump in 2016 and those who did not. They agree with him that nothing has been gained in these “forever wars,” these “no-win wars,” against which our greatest 20th-century Gen. Douglas MacArthur warned us long ago.

The Afghan war has been going on for 19 years—America’s longest war. To what end? Recently released document show that even top leaders in the Pentagon haven’t known what the objectives of that war were. And yet troops are fighting there today who weren’t yet born when it began. Make a list of all the reasons that have been given for staying in Afghanistan over the years. Did any of those things happen?  And yet we fight on and on forever anyway.

Why are we still in Syria?

And what about Iraq? ISIS has been defeated—why are we staying? The Jan. 5 nonbinding vote of the Iraqi parliament to ask that U.S. troops be removed, should be taken as the occasion to declare victory and finally part ways with the worst mistake in our history.

America is a nation of vast unmet needs, especially in the “flyover country” between the East and West Coasts. Industry and agriculture were already in collapse before the 2008 crisis, and have not yet recovered since. There is no one who doesn’t see the catastrophes of drug addiction, homelessness, and many others. No way can we afford to sacrifice the lives of our best young people and trillions of dollars in these forever wars.

President Trump knows all this—he campaigned and won on it. From the day he walked down the escalator and declared his candidacy, if not before, he has fought the imperial forces, centered in the City of London and Wall Street, and now they are trying to trap him in the forever wars ignited by the Bushes, Barack Obama, and the British Foreign Office—and he continues to fight.

The United States has no stake here, and lost any influence it might have had, in the disaster of the Iraq War and the Arab Spring. We should get out now. We should ask the Russians and the Chinese to join us in a campaign to ensure reconstruction and development of this war-ravaged area immediately. New long-term financing mechanisms are needed for that, a stable means of financing great projects. The private mercenary armies we have sponsored must be disarmed. These things should be on the agenda of the emergency summit among the Presidents of the U.S., Russia, and China called for by Helga Zepp-LaRouche. Get the shovels in the ground and start the tractors rolling.

This will free President Trump to fulfill his campaign promise to the American people—a national mission to explore the Moon and go to Mars; a national mission to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure and decaying cities, a national mission to seize the future for and through our youth.

STRATEGIC WAR DANGER

Iran Warned of Its Missile Strike Ahead of Time

Jan. 9 (EIRNS)—That there was warning of the Iranian missile launches on Jan. 8 sufficient to give U.S. personnel at the targeted bases time to take shelter in bunkers, seems pretty clear. U.S. military officials were warned about Iran’s pending ballistic missile strike “when the air defense systems went active” shortly before the attack was launched, a U.S. official in Baghdad told Fox News, likely referring to Iranian air defenses. The official also said that U.S. intelligence picked up “chatter” from Iran and inside Iraq, tipping off American forces to a strike around 1:30 a.m. local time, which was when the missiles were fired.

A senior U.S. official told Fox News that Iranian officials warned Iraq about the pending missile attack because Tehran did not want to kill Iraqi forces. Some Iraqi forces also warned their American counterparts, but the U.S. had already known “for hours” that Iran was planning to launch the attack. “That warning was not a surprise to us,” the U.S. official said. “We already knew it was coming.”

Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi’s office confirmed that he was warned ahead of time by Iran of the impending missile strikes. “Shortly after midnight on Wednesday, we received a verbal message from the Islamic Republic of Iran that the Iranian response to the assassination of the martyr Qasem Soleimani had started or was about to start,” Abdul-Mahdi’s spokesperson said in a statement, reported Rudaw News. The spokesperson further stated that Iran had informed the Iraqi Prime Minister that “it would only target locations where U.S. forces were present,” without specifying the locations. “We immediately warned Iraqi military commanders to take the necessary precautions,” read the Prime Minister’s statement. During the attack, Abdul-Mahdi had also received a call from the American government, the spokesperson stated.

Askary Tells Syria Times, British Empire War-Mongers Seek To Stop New Silk Road in Southwest Asia

Jan. 9 (EIRNS)—The Syria Times, the official English online daily, interviewed EIR’s Hussein Askary on Jan. 7, and published the full text of the interview, conducted with Haifa Mafalani, under the headline “Hussein Askary: By Assassinating General Soleimani in Iraq, Trump Administration Has Put the World Into New Uncharted Waters.”

Among many points made by Askary, he stressed that there is a larger context of the British Empire’s geopolitical push for “endless warfare” as against the prospect of peace through development.

Askary said of the U.S. assassination of Iran’s Gen. Qasem Soleimani, “It is very likely that Trump was sucked into this reckless operation upon the pushing of neoconservative circles and pro-Zionist war-mongering individuals and groups. These forces have been upset with the victories achieved in Syria and Iraq to clean the country from the U.S. and British-backed terrorist groups, and finally pave the way for the integration of the region into the Belt and Road Initiative/New Silk Road from China, through Central Asia and Iran, to Iraq, then Syria and the Mediterranean. President Bashar Al-Assad just two weeks ago declared that the Belt and Road Initiative is Syria’s way to reconstruction, and revealed that Syria has six strategic mega-projects in this regard. The Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdel-Mahdi was in China in late September and signed many significant agreements to exchange oil for reconstruction of infrastructure. This was a revolutionary development. But as soon as he was back in Baghdad, the uprising against the government started, and the country entered a new spiral of violence and insecurity ever since.”

Askary concluded his interview by observing, “The Iranian leadership has been exerting a great deal of calm and rationality in assessing its reactions to coercive U.S. moves in the recent two years. Of course, a more restrained reaction would be helpful. But that requires guarantees that such criminal operations will cease and the current U.S. policy towards Iran is reversed.

“Therefore, the Chairwoman of the International Schiller Institute, Mrs. Helga Zepp-LaRouche, called for Russia and China to intervene diplomatically to make sure that the U.S. realizes that that would be the right way of easing the tension and putting the whole region on the path of peace and security. Bringing the nations of the region into the Belt and Road Initiative is the key to the success of this effort.”

The Syria Times identified Askary in some detail. “Hussein Askary is an Iraqi-born Swedish citizen. He is the Southwest Asia Coordinator of the International Schiller Institute. Askary has worked as an economic and strategic analyst on Southwest Asia and North and East Africa for the Washington-based weekly magazine Executive Intelligence Review since 1996. He is the co-author of several books on the New Silk Road strategy and its impact on the world economy.”

In early September 2019, Mafalani reviewed the Schiller Institute 2016 video “Project Phoenix—Aleppo: The Eternal City,” which had been produced and first aired for the June 25-26, 2016 Schiller conference in Berlin, on the “Common Future for Mankind, and a Renaissance of the Classical Cultures.”

In Germany, ‘No War! Thank You Mr. President!’

Jan. 9 (EIRNS)—With this frontpage banner headline, Germany’s leading mass-tabloid Bildzeitung, which has for years run black propaganda coverage against Iran, today welcomed U.S. President Donald Trump’s remarks yesterday, thank him for having averted a catastrophe. The mainstream media hostility against Iran aside, the reality is that the vast majority of the German population are opposed to any military adventures and favor direct dialogue between conflicting political leaders.

Against that background, Bildzeitung today also carried a commentary by Wolfgang Ischinger, chairman of the Munich Security Conference, to the same effect. Ischinger calls for an independent, high-level person who has the respect of both sides, to mediate in the conflict between Washington and Tehran. Europe should contribute to finding such a mediator, he says. Ischinger’s idea can be expected to also play a role on the agenda of the next international Munich Security Conference, which will be held on Feb. 14-16.

Senior Italian Diplomat Says Russia, Egypt and Turkey Should Decide on Libya

Jan. 9 (EIRNS)—Giampiero Massolo, a career diplomat and former ambassador to Moscow, former director general of the Foreign Ministry, and former coordinator of Italian intelligence in the prime minister’s office, currently head of Fincantieri shipyards and chairman of the Milan-based Italian Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI), has called on Italy, France and Germany to work on those countries which have influence on the Libyan factions in order to stabilize the situation. “The crisis can be solved only from the outside, by acting on the external forces that influence the two factions,” Massolo said, listing Egypt, Russia, Turkey, and other countries.

Massolo said that speaking to the two factions—the Government of National Accord of Fayez al-Sarraj in Tripoli and the Libyan National Army of Gen. Khalifa Haftar—will produce no result, and he further expressed skepticism regarding the EU as an institution.

Massolo was interviewed on the Raitre morning political talk show “Agorà,” in the context of reports about meetings in Rome and Cairo yesterday. In Rome, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte had invited both Sarraj and Haftar, but when Sarraj was en route and learned that Haftar had already arrived and was being received before him in Rome, he reversed course and flew back to Tripoli.

In Cairo, a meeting on the Libya crisis among the Foreign Ministers of Italy, France, Egypt, Greece and Cyprus ended with no joint communiqué. In a letter to the daily La Repubblica, Italy’s Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio wrote “we have expressed more than one perplexity regarding the final declaration of the summit, which appeared to be a serious imbalance against the government of Prime Minister Sarraj recognized by the United Nations.”

Both Rome and Cairo meetings are seen by the opposition and the media as a failure of the Italian government.

Before the Cairo meeting, Di Maio had met in Istanbul with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, with whom he agreed on “the opportunity of opening a consultation channel with Turkey involving Moscow as well.”

U.S. POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC

Senators Question Where Did the Intelligence Come From To Justify the Soleimani Killing

Jan. 9 (EIRNS)—Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, a strong supporter of the President, was very critical of an Iran briefing given him by Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and CIA Director Gina Haspel.

“It is not acceptable for officials within the executive branch of government—I don’t care whether they’re with the CIA or the Department of Defense or otherwise—to come in and tell us we can’t debate the appropriateness of military intervention against Iran,” Lee said. “It’s un-American, it’s unconstitutional and it’s wrong.”

Lee said that he is now open to supporting a Democratic war powers resolution prohibiting going to war on Iran without a Congressional vote.

Lee explained in a Fox News interview later, that while he’s supportive of Trump and his Iran policy in general, he thought the briefers did Trump a disservice: “What I’m concerned about is the flippant attitude that they reflected, both with regard to the underlying facts on Friday’s attack, and especially as they relate moving forward to any subsequent attack that we might undertake on Iran,” Lee said. “There was a dismissive attitude, one that was displayed in such a way that resulted in them saying, ‘We can’t identify what circumstances in which we would need to come back to Congress to get approval or authorization,’ ” he continued. “That is antithetical to the Constitution.”

Lee said “I support President Trump. I support the way that he has wielded his powers as commander in chief. I think he’s actually been the most respectful of all presidents during my lifetime of the commander-in-chief power,” Lee said. “I think the people who briefed the Senate today did him a grave disservice.”

President Donald Trump, following a presentation today at the White House on the National Environmental Policy Act, said that Soleimani was engaged in a plan to blow up a U.S. embassy. Asked by a reporter about Lee’s comments on the briefing, Trump said of Senators Lee and Rand Paul, “They want information which, honestly, I think is very hard to get. It’s OK if the military wants to give it, but they didn’t want to give it, and it really had to do with sources and information that we had, that really should remain at a high level.”

All this points to the likelihood, which is obvious in any case, that the intelligence on Soleimani originated from a foreign intelligence agency. But that does not necessarily mean that it was untrue.

THE NEW GLOBAL ECONOMIC ORDER

Mexico Proposes Optimistic CELAC Agenda, Especially in Space and Science-Technology Cooperation

Jan. 9 (EIRNS)—At today’s Mexico City summit of the 33-nation Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), Mexico assumed leadership of the group for the next year as president pro-tempore, and presented an ambitious and future-oriented 14-point agenda for that period, based, as Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard put it, on the interests these nations share in common, putting aside political differences.

“We’re not going to be discussing the same issues discussed in other forums,” he said, as the goal is to make CELAC “the most powerful instrument for cooperation for Latin America and the Caribbean,” RT quoted him as saying. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, or AMLO as he is known, presided over the opening ceremony in which his government officially assumed the president pro-tempore position, previously held by Bolivia. That nation’s illegitimate government didn’t attend the summit; nor did Brazil. Later, AMLO tweeted “we seek cooperation for the development of our nations.”

Of the 14-point agenda Ebrard presented, priorities for this year include expanded cooperation in space and aeronautics, something he said is feasible, despite the complexity of the issue, because there are nine nations in the region with space agencies and six that have their own satellites. The goal, according to El Financiero, will be to hold a meeting of those 15 countries, and any others that wish to attend, to announce the Latin American-Caribbean Space Program, beginning 2020-2021. The hope is to launch a Latin American-Caribbean satellite in 2020.

Cooperation in science and technology is another top priority, Ebrard said. This will include initiatives such as creating specialized teams to address issues such as natural disasters, and heightened monitoring to combat infectious disease and the danger of epidemics, Excélsior reported. In March, Mexico will host the Science and Technology in Society forum being held for the first time in Latin America.

In addition to promoting greater economic integration and coordination as a bloc, another priority, Ebrard emphasized, is to strengthen and “reactivate” CELAC through frequent meetings. A China-CELAC Ministerial Forum is scheduled to meet in Shanghai in the second half of 2020, he announced. “We are beginning a new decade and there also has to be a new decade for the Community of Latin American and Community States,” the Foreign Minister said, Notimex reported.

COLLAPSING WESTERN FINANCIAL SYSTEM

Dairy Bankruptcies Show Nasty Wall Street Side of U.S. Economic Destruction, Farm Crisis

Jan. 9 (EIRNS)—This week the famous name dairy company Borden’s declared Chapter 11 Federal bankruptcy. Headquartered in Texas, the 160-year-old milk-processing firm is known the world over for its mascot, Elsie the Cow. It ranks about 30th in U.S. dairy companies. In November, the largest fluid milk processer in the U.S., Dean Foods (and third largest dairy firm) also declared Ch. 11. Dean’s originated in the Midwest, then became based in Texas, through mergers and shifting dairy herd concentration.

There are several twists and turns in these big-deal dairy bankruptcies, which reflect the unhinged Wall Street factor causing destruction throughout the farm-food chain.

On the level of physical economy, the dairy processor bankruptcies go along with the fact that not only have family-scale dairy herd operations been squeezed to the point of extinction across the country, replaced by bigger and bigger operations and mega-herds. But also the dairy processors—for fluid milk, cheese, ice cream—have become huge, cutting out local and regional operations. Even then, the bigger firms can’t necessarily survive.

As of 2017, of the four major dairy companies in the U.S., all except for Dean’s were foreign-owned multinational conglomerates: First was Nestlé (Swiss), next Saputo Dairy Foods (Canada), and fourth is Danone (France). The story doesn’t stop there.

In 2017 Walmart ceased obtaining any fluid milk from Dean’s, its chief supplier for years, which doomed the dairy firm. Walmart started up its own mega-processing facility in Indiana and is now one of the top U.S. processers. Hundreds of dairy farmers selling to Dean’s were left with no market. Walmart took over some of Dean’s former farmers and nixed others.

The point is that this kind of disruption and destruction of capacity and regional economies doesn’t have to be. Policies can be worked out to shift and protect farm-food productivity, as has been done in the past. Instead family-scale dairy farms are being forced into ruin.

The Borden’s story is especially nasty, involving a feud this week between Wall Street big money outfits, pissing over how to protect their money. In the recent period, Borden’s got a loan in the range of $175 million from KKR & Co., and a loan from PNC Bank of some $94 million. At the same time, the private equity fund Acon Investments had heavily bought into Borden’s. After Borden’s filed for Ch. 11 bankruptcy protection on Jan. 6, the next day, KKR filed a counter-action in the courts, arguing that Borden’s bankruptcy was unnecessary, and only prompted by Acon trying to protect its holdings.

As for the consumer—good luck. One blow against having regionally produced fresh milk, such as for fluid use and local cheeses, is the cynical line that there is a “milk glut,” and family farmers should not expect to get a decent price, but they should quit, or produce less. A contributing factor to this viewpoint is the 20-year campaign for “Beyond Milk” products, such as oat, nut, and other “milk.” Personal dietary preference is one thing, but the Wall Street interventions to induce preference is the norm.

The solution, as always, lies with the government’s sovereign responsibility for the food supply and economy, which involves production management, parity pricing, etc. The new USMCA dairy provisions are not designed to relieve the U.S. farm crisis.

Nine-Year Low in Chinese Investments in Europe and U.S., May Go Up from Here

Jan. 9 (EIRNS)—Chinese investments in North America and Europe hit a nine-year low in 2019, according to a new report from global law firm Baker McKenzie and independent research provider Rhodium Group released Jan. 8. China’s investments worth $19 billion in North America and Europe in 2019 were 83% down from the peak of $107 billion in 2017, with investment in North America down by 27% to $5.5 billion dollars in 2019, the lowest level since 2009, and investment in Europe down by 40% to $13.4 billion last year, the lowest since 2013.

The report stated that the situation may improve after the “phase one” trade deal between China and the United States. “We see grounds for a degree of optimism as there are a number of variables showing change in the right direction, which could propel Chinese outbound investment to bottom out and return to modest growth in 2020,” said Tracy Wut, a mergers and acquisitions partner at Baker McKenzie in Hong Kong, Xinhua reports.

SCIENCE AND INFRASTRUCTURE

Scientists Develop a New Process To Capture Deuterium for Fusion Fuel

Jan. 9 (EIRNS)—Chinese and British scientists have developed a process to more efficiently separate deuterium, a heavy isotope of hydrogen, from a gas mixture, Global Times reported on Jan. 8. The process, said Ding Lifeng, a member of the Chinese side from the Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, consists of a new material, named porous organic cages (POCs), which separates the isotopes and absorbs the deuterium “in large quantities.” By contrast, the current separation process “is energy-intensive and, therefore, expensive,” Ding said.

The large next-generation tokamaks, such as the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), like the current generation, will continue using deuterium and tritium for fusion fuel. More advanced reactor designs are experimenting with alternative fuels, the most promising being helium-3.

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