E.I.R.STRATEGIC ALERT WEEKLY NEWSLETTER

E.I.R.STRATEGIC ALERT WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
Volume 31, No. 3 - January 19, 2017
It’s the British Empire, Stupid! The barrage of attacks against Donald Trump in the transAtlantic world reflects much more than disagreement with, or fear of, his stated policies or his way of presenting them. The hysteria is not over anything “American”, but over a global dynamic. It is the reaction of a system in its death throes, desperately attempting to push back against a “new paradigm” that is rapidly spreading throughout the rest of the world. The system is that of globalization, of the financial power of Wall Street and the City of London, combined with military might and a slew of mass media to carry out its propaganda. In sum, the current form of the hated “British Empire”. It is the “unipolar world” under Anglo-American domination, which was pursued after the fall of the Soviet Union by the neocons in the first Bush Administration under the banner of the “Project for a New American Century.” Any government in the world unwilling to submit to that world order was slated for a “regime change” operation, which became increasingly militarized, as seen in Iraq, Libya and Syria, or was disguised as a “color revolution”, for example in Ukraine. The Europeans were allowed into that arrangement as “junior partners”, as long as they followed the rules of the game – which they have unquestionably done. It is because Donald Trump promised to put an end to that policy of permanent war and regime change, as well as of deindustrialization, that he knocked out all his establishment rivals in the Republican Party one by one, and went on to defeat Hillary Clinton. Thus, the hysteria inside and outside the United States has reached fever pitch, with many already plotting an impeachment campaign or a “color revolution” against the new President, while the outgoing President Obama wastes his last days in office issuing a myriad of executive decrees. The new paradigm they so fear demands the right to real economic development for all and win-win mutually beneficial cooperation among nations and peoples. Xi Jinping presented his vision of it to the World Economic Forum in Davos Jan. 17, just as he did at the G20 summit last September. Chinese and Russian leaders have offered to work together with Donald Trump on that basis. Will he do so? That remains a question mark at this point. But if he does, that would be the end of the era of the British Empire.
The Foreign Power Corrupting U.S. Politics  Is Not Russia, but Great Britain The latest dossier about President-elect Trump’s supposed ties to Russia has proved to be a “fake news” operation run by British intelligence. Even before that, it was shown that the allegation that Russia had interfered in the election on behalf of Trump had been cooked up in Great Britain, funnelled into the FBI and to supporters of Hillary Clinton, and then pushed into the U.S. media by British intelligence. In sum, it is London that is corrupting American politics – and that is the real scandal. Consider the facts. The “fake news” dossier that was leaked on Jan. 10, and claimed among other smears, that Trump was being blackmailed by Vladimir Putin, began to be compiled during the presidential primaries as a project commissioned by a wealthy Republican donor who was opposed to Trump, according to the BBC . That donor hired a D.C.-based research firm named “Fusion GPS,” which was founded and headed by Glenn Simpson, a former Wall St. Journal reporter, who is tied to neo-con networks, and is known to be anti-Putin. After Trump secured the Republican nomination, funding for the project temporarily stopped. At that point, Fusion GPS was hired by supporters of Hillary Clinton to continue their research against the candidate. In June 2016, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) announced it had been hacked, and blamed the hacking on Russia. That information, according to The Guardian , first came from the British intelligence service in the Autumn of 2015, and was transmitted to the FBI, which then contacted the DNC. The latter, however, did not take it seriously, and it was not until May-June 2016, after Trump had secured the Republican nomination, and after Fusion GPS had been hired by Hillary Clinton supporters, that the DNC had a private security firm announce publicly that they had been hacked, and that the Russians had allegedly done it. It was at that point that Fusion GPS hired Christopher Steele, a former MI6 agent, to work on the dossier. Steele had worked undercover in Moscow and Paris, and was also known to be anti-Putin. The FBI was also familiar with Steele, who had supplied the agency with information on corruption in the international soccer federation, FIFA, which later led to indictments of top officials, which was also aimed at Russia. In the Trump case, Steele hired contacts in Russia to gather information for Fusion GPS from his former MI6 informants.
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During the Summer and Autumn of 2016, Steele wrote memos to Fusion GPS which now comprise the 35-page “fake news” dossier that was leaked last week. Those memos were also circulating in Washington all that time among political circles and news organizations, but no one would publish them, because they were so obviously phoney. When Trump won the election, Fusion GPS was no longer being paid for its work but Simpson and Steele continued their investigation and their promulgation of the dodgy dossier anyway. In December, they arranged for Sen. John McCain to obtain it, who personally passed it on to FBI director James Comey, even though he already received it from Christopher Steele’s channels. The dossier was so obviously full of lies that it was never aired publicly, until DNI Clapper and CIA Director Brennan elevated it from mere gossip to “news,” by including a summary of it in their report to Obama and Trump on Russian influence on the U.S. election. Once given the imprimatur of “intelligence” in this way, it was then finally disclosed by CNN and published in whole by BuzzFeed . The Real Sex Scandal in Washington: Democrats Embrace J. Edgar Hoover! With the publication of a preposterous, slanderous attack on President-elect Donald Trump by the internet media company, BuzzFeed , the mainstream media and the globalist neocon/neoliberal elites they serve have made clear the immediate intent of their campaign: to prevent the new President from reversing the anti-Russia policies of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, which had put the world on a course toward nuclear war. In addition, with strong British input, they are manufacturing elements to prepare his impeachment. Their campaign is backfiring, as did the effort by the same gang to disrupt the Electoral College vote. Trump denounced their efforts in tweets on January 13, one of which said, “It now turns out that the phony allegations against me were put together by my political opponents and a failed spy afraid of being sued. Totally made up facts by sleazebag political operatives, both Democrats and Republicans - FAKE NEWS! Russia says nothing exists. Probably released by Intelligence even knowing there is no proof, and never will be.” In addition to the overdue discredit the media and the intelligence agencies have brought upon themselves, there is the matter of the role of the Democratic Party, whose leaders are cheerleading the efforts of the intelligence community to destroy Trump. The irony has not been lost, as Glenn Greenwald reports in The Intercept on Jan. 11, in an article on the war of the “Deep State” against the President-Elect, using unverified claims. (https://theintercept.com/2017/01/11/the-deep-stategoes-to-war-with-president-elect-using-unverified-claims-asdems-cheer/) Greenwald, a Trump opponent, but also a leading critic of the intelligence community, writes, that this faction “is now engaged in open warfare” against the President-elect. “They are using classic Cold War dirty tactics and the defining ingredients of what has until recently been denounced as ‘Fake News.’ “Their most valuable instrument is the U.S. media, much of which reflexively reveres, serves, believes, and sides with hidden intelligence officials. And Democrats, still reeling from their unexpected and traumatic election loss, as well as a systemic collapse of their party, seemingly divorced further and further from reason with each passing day, are willing – eager -- to embrace any claim, cheer any tactic, align with any villain,
regardless of how unsupported, tawdry, and damaging those behaviors might be.” Investigative journalist Robert Parry, in Consortium News , adds that the anti-Trump move now applauded by Democrats is one they once reviled: “The decision by the US intelligence community to include in an official report some unverified and salacious accusations against president-elect Donald Trump, resembles a tactic out of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover’s playbook on government-style blackmail: ‘I have some very derogatory information about you that I’d sure hate to see end up in the press’.”(See https://consortiumnews.com/2017/01/12/pullinga-j-edgar-hoover-on-trump/) As one wag put it, the real sex scandal in Washington is not about Trump, but about the Democrats being caught in bed with the increasingly self-discredited intelligence community. What Donald Trump Actually Said  on Foreign Policy, Economy and Health-Care Predictably, mainstream media in Europe reported on Donald Trump’s first press conference by focussing almost exclusively on his clash with the media (in particular CNN and BBC ). Other major elements of his program were basically ignored although, if implemented, they will bring about a fundamental change. The following we consider to be the most relevant: * Foreign policy: Trump was not at all defensive on the alleged attitude of Russian president Vladimir Putin. “If Putin likes Donald Trump, I consider that an asset, not a liability, because we have a horrible relationship with Russia.” Russia can help the United States fight ISIS, he said, which the Obama administration created by leaving Iraq at the wrong time. “The void was created, ISIS was formed. “If Putin likes Donald Trump, guess what, folks, that’s called an asset, not a liability. Now, I don’t know that I’m going to get along with Vladimir Putin. I hope I do. But there’s a good chance I won’t.” * Economic policy:Trump reiterated his intention to reverse the outsourcing of industry and to bring jobs back to the United States. Companies that want to move their plants abroad and then import to the U.S. “your air conditioners or your cars or whatever you’re making”, well you are “going to pay a very large border tax. “So if you want to move to another country and if you want to fire all of our great American workers that got you there in the first place, you can move from Michigan to Tennessee and to North Carolina and South Carolina, you can move from South Carolina back to Michigan... I don’t care as long as it’s within the borders of United States.” Because politicians have lacked the guts to act decisively, he went on, there are 96 million Americans today who want a fulltime job, but can’t find one. Health-care: Trump announced that he will replace Obamacare with a new bill, and will force the pharmaceutical industry to cut prices for medical drugs, because at this point, “they’re getting away with murder. “Pharma has a lot of lobbies and a lot of lobbyists and a lot of power, and there’s very little bidding on drugs. We’re the largest buyer of drugs in the world, and yet, we don’t bid properly. And we’re going to start bidding and we’re going to save billions of dollars over a period of time, and we’re going to do that with a lot of other industries.” Very importantly, the President-elect made a point of defending the right of all veterans to decent health-care, because, although many of them suffer from illnesses sustained in com
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bat, they are among the worst covered groups of people under the current plans. Trump’s attack on the pharmaceutical industry was backed by Bernie Sanders, who twitted on Jan. 11: “Trump is right: pharma is ‘getting away with murder.’ But do Trump and Republicans have the guts to police drug companies and lower prices?” President Xi Jinping Brings “Win-Win Cooperation” to Davos Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived in Switzerland on Jan. 15, both for a state visit and to deliver the keynote address to the Davos World Economic Forum on Jan. 17, a first-ever for a Chinese head of state. There is a special irony to Xi’s muchawaited address to that body, as Davos is perhaps the most emblematic international forum of the dying imperial order. An article in Xinhua on the 15th previewed some of the central themes that Xi is expected to address, under the title “A community of common destiny, a shared home for humanity.” Since Xi first proposed the concept in late 2012, “it has gone on to shape China’s approach to global governance.” The article quoted Tanq Qifang, a researcher with the China Institute of International Studies, explaining that: “The concept of a community of common destiny transcends all sorts of differences in human society and targets greatest possible benefits for all.” Xi’s state visit to Switzerland was very much focused on innovation, following the Innovative Strategic Partnership the two countries signed during the visit of then-President and Economics Minister Schneider-Ammann to Beijing last April. There is a strong, historic basis for cooperation. Switzerland was the first Western country to officially recognize China in 1950, the first continental European country to sign a free trade agreement with China in 2013, one of the first in Europe to join the AIIB, and it has also recognized China’s full WTO status. The Swiss elevator producer Schindler was the first Western company to enter a joint venture with a Chinese counterpart, already back in the 1970s. Switzerland and China maintain 20 cooperation formats, from industrial ones to others on legal and human rights issues. On Jan. 18, the Chinese President is scheduled to address the UN organizations based in Geneva. BRICS New Development Bank  to Double Funding for Projects in 2017 The president of the New Development Bank (NDB) set up by the BRICS, Kundapur Vaman Kamath, reported that the Bank expects expects its board of directors to approve projects valued up to $3 billion this year, compared to last year’s financing of $1.5 billion. “This will be spread over all our member countries,” he told TASS. The focus will be on infrastructure and sustainable development. As China takes over the chairmanship of the BRICS group this year and will host their Summit in Xiamen, media there have underlined the importance of the group in the global economy. “With 42.6 per cent of the world’s total population and roughly one-third of the world’s land area, it has a combined GDP that accounts for about one-fifth of the world’s total,” China Daily wrote. “At the same time, the group, with its rising international clout, has become an indispensable force behind global economic governance reforms and international financial stability.” More scientific measures of economic growth than GDP, based on Lyndon LaRouche’s science of physical economy, show
that China and the BRICS’s contribution to actual physical economic growth is even more significant. The same article notes that the BRICS will be playing a greater role with regard to the overriding political and social issues, including the fight against terrorism. “As a bloc that represents the interests of the developing world, BRICS is also counted on to drive the wheels of South-South Cooperation, improve global governance and establish a fair, just and inclusive international order. Cooperation in economic and political fields has over the years emerged as the two ‘wheels’ of BRICS. The rise of the five emerging economies has brought profound changes to the world political and economic landscape.’’ Chinese Foreign Minister Welcomes  African Nations to the Belt and Road Initiative True to China’s tradition of the past 27 years, Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s first trip abroad in 2017 took him to Africa Jan. 7-12, where he visited five countries that are part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Of course, the Belt and Road has long been extended to the African continent, with two major railroads in East Africa, one from Djibouti on the east coast of Africa to Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, and another from the port of Mombasa in Kenya to the capital Nairobi. But these are only the most publicized of the many transportation and other projects planned by China on the African continent. At the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) summit in 2015 in Johannesburg,  Chinese President Xi Jinping outlined 10 overarching plans for Sino-Africa cooperation in industry, agriculture, infrastructure, environment, trade facilitation, poverty alleviation, and public health. Since then, China has spent over $50 billion in building infrastructure, special economic zones and industrial parks. In Tanzania, Wang Yi discussed the renovation and modernization of the 1,860-km Tanzania-Zambia Railroad, a hallmark infrastructural project of China in Africa, built in the 1970s. Just a few months ago, the Chinese completed construction of the 680-meter long, six-lane Nyerere Bridge in Dar es Salaam, the largest cable-stayed cross-sea bridge in East Africa. In Nigeria, China recently completed a railroad line between Kaduna in the north to central Abuja and has signed an MOU to work on a rail line connecting the north of the country all the way to the south. In addition, China has helped build five airports in Nigeria. In the Republic of Congo, China has committed to building a special economic zone in the harbor city of Pointe Noire. Wang Yi also visited Madagascar, the island country off the east coast of Africa, which could serve as a vital link of the BRI to the African continent, as it had done in the days when Zheng He sailed the Indian Ocean in the early 15th Century. During his trip, Wang noted that the FOCAC program announced in Johannesburg is being transformed in three ways. Firstly it is being transformed from a government-led pattern to a market operation-oriented one, with greater participation by private companies; secondly, it is being upgraded from general merchandise trade to production capacity cooperation, processing and trade; and thirdly, it is shifting from basic project contracting to investment construction and operation. While Chinese investment in Africa initially encountered some concern, as some feared that China was only interested in securing energy resources from the region, with its rather extensive investment region-wide even in areas that possess no significant energy or mineral resources, the attitude has changed radically. “Unlike other development partners, Gaudence Mpangala, professor at the Ruaha Catholic University in
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Tanzania told Xinhua , “the Chinese are investing in infrastructure and industries which could help propel Tanzania to middle income status by 2025.” Opportunities and Potential Dangers  in South-West Asia in 2017 The ceasefire in Syria brokered by Russia and Turkey on Dec. 29, and backed by Iran and the Syrian government, is still holding, according to UN sources. Six out of nine of the largest Syrian rebel groups with strong ties to Turkey accepted the agreement, which implies that they sever all ties with Al-Nusra (recently renamed Jabhat Fath El-Sham) and with ISIS. The exile Syrian opposition National Coalition announced on Jan. 13, that it would participate in the negotiations set for Jan. 23 in Astana, Kazakhstan, after extensive meetings its leadership had with Russian and Turkish foreign ministry officials in Istanbul. The United States and its Western and regional allies such as Saudi Arabia, are out of the picture now, after failing to achieve their military objectives of overthrowing the Syrian government with the help of Turkey, which has now moved into the Russia camp. The other huge reason for the U.S. withdrawal from the scene is the transition process from the Obama Administration to the Trump Administration, where it remains unclear what the policy of the new President toward the Middle East will be. But if the Turkish-Russian arrangements continue to hold, the cleaning of the rest of Syria from ISIS in the east and AlQaeda in Idlib in the west, would only be a matter of time, but complicated by moves such as the recent stoppage of the water supply to the five million inhabitants of Damascus. In Iraq, the army and the militias allied with it are gaining ground in Mosul, the last major foothold of ISIS in that country. The supply routes from Syria to ISIS in Iraq are also being cut at the border.   However, there are other dangers lurking in the background, which should be watched. The Israeli government under Benjamin Netanyahu has followed with great dismay the success of the Syrian army in collaboration with what Israel considers its arch enemies: Hizbollah and Iran. Netanyahu has been emboldened by statements made by President-elect Trump and his advisers, that they will undo the Iran nuclear agreement. The U.S. Congress also just renewed unilateral sanctions against Iran in December. Israel could be tempted to launch provocations against Hizbollah and Iran soon to bring about a violent reaction from both of them, which are themselves suffering from a certain dose of hubris due to their success in Syria. From another angle, depending again on the American and Russian policies, Saudi Arabia could be tempted to provoke a new crisis with Iran, though not in Syria. It might use the Shia-Sunni tension in Bahrain for example or in its own eastern province, where the majority of the residents are nominally Shia Saudis. Similarly, the continued Saudi war on Yemen, which has brought this poor country to the verge of total collapse and famine, is not only a terrible crime, but also a major potential regional war threat. If the Trump Administration is not careful in dealing with the whole delicate situation in the region, it could be pulled into a new quagmire. Its pronounced willingness to cooperate with Russia in fighting terrorism is a very positive element, that should be complemented by support for Russia’s efforts to find a peaceful solution to the conflicts in the whole region, including the Palestinian-Israeli crisis, and by collaboration with China and the sovereign nations of the region to rebuild their
economies along the lines of New Silk Road and the EurasianAfrica land-bridge.     EIR Co-Sponsors Seminar in Stockholm  on the New Strategic Realignment “Donald Trump and the New International Paradigm” was the title of an extraordinary seminar on Jan. 11 in Stockholm, keynoted by Helga Zepp-LaRouche and co-sponsored by EIR and the Schiller Institute. It drew a standing-room only attendance, including 7 ambassadors, 10 other high-ranking diplomats, many members of Swedish friendship associations with Russia, Ukraine, Syria, Yemen, etc., as well as political activists. Zepp-LaRouche went through the new paradigm emerging, which is combined with “a complete backlash against the system of globalization, which takes on different forms in different parts of the world”. In the trans-Atlantic sector, it is reflected in such ways as the Brexit vote, the election of Donald Trump, and the victory of the no vote in Italian referendum on giving more power to the EU. She welcomed the possibility of finally overcoming geopolitics, which she described as “like a little, nasty two-year-old boy, who is not yet educated and knows no better than to kick his brother in the knee. That’s about the level of geopolitics.” But the new economic system represented by the Belt and Road Initiative, she said, “already involves 4.4 billion people; in terms of buying power in today’s dollars, it is already 12 times bigger than the Marshall Plan was after the Second World War, and is open for every country to join.” If the Germans are worried about the refugee crisis, “which really has meant a complete destabilization of the country, why is Germany not cooperating, with Russia, with China, India, Iran, in the reconstruction of the Middle East?” She went on to give the example of how all nations should be cooperating, altogether, in space exploration and space research, because “Mankind is not an Earth-bound species.” That means fulfilling the commitment made by the Schiller Institute in 1984 to “fight for the common aims of mankind. ... And the areas of working together are a crash program for fusion, space cooperation, and breakthroughs in fundamental science.” Helga Zepp-LaRouche’s presentation moved the audience to address the fundamental epistemological meaning of the New Silk Road, in the context of the development of mankind in the universe as a whole.  That was very much appreciated by some diplomats, who took the cultural issue up during the discussion. After her keynote address, the Chairman of the Swedish Schiller Institute, Hussein Askary, gave a short overview of the perspectives for development of South West Asia and Africa. The video of this presentation is available on the Schiller YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdl0Hxg_Ubc
E.I.R. STRATEGIC ALERT        www.eir.de  Published by: E.I.R.GmbH,  Bahnstr. 9a, 65205 Wiesbaden Tel.: 0611/73650, Fax: 0611/7365101, Email:  info@eir.com Verantwortl. f. d. Inhalt: Dean Andromidas, Claudio Celani Subscription: EUR 3000/ ISSN  0936-7527 © E.I.R. GmbH  Alle Rechte vorbehalten, auch die des Nachdrucks von Auszügen, derphotomechanischen Wiedergabe und der Übersetzung, Printed in Germany