E.I.R.STRATEGIC WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
ALERT Volume 33, No. 22, May 30, 2019
Helga Zepp-LaRouche Visits China, Addresses Asian Civilizations Conference Schiller Institute founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche has just re- turned from a 10-day visit to China, which included public pre- sentations, interviews and extensive private meetings. The trip began with her participation in the Conference on Dialogue of Asian Civilizations, held May 15-16 in Beijing, to which Presi- dent Xi Jinping delivered the keynote.
On that occasion, Zepp-LaRouche gave a 10 minute speech, based on a paper titled “The Highest Ideal of Mankind Is the Potential of the Future,” which has already been published as part of the Conference proceedings, and which our newsletter will cover next week.
What was palpable at the conference, Zepp-LaRouche stressed, was how impressed participants from other Asian na- tions are impressed by China’s economic growth, and its phe- nomenal success in fighting poverty and overcoming economic backwardness.
Zepp-LaRouche also had high-level meetings with represen- tatives of many top institutions that she has been in touch with since the 1990s. These occurred at a moment of very grave tensions between China and the United States -- because of the collapse of the trade talks, the Huawei affair, and other issues. There is indeed growing concern over the attacks on Hua- wei, as they are are seen as an attempt to prevent China’s high-tech development. But not only China’s, since the puni- tive measures also hit other developing countries dependent on Huawei, in particular in Africa. Many are looking to the international LaRouche movement for solutions to these prob- lems, she reported.
The founder of the Schiller Institute also delivered a speech at the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies of Renmin Uni- versity in Beijing, and visited Nanjing, where she met with the publisher of the Chinese-language edition of the first volume of The New Silk Road Becomes the World Land-Bridge special re- port published by EIR. A second printing of that report has re- cently been done, as they consider it one of the most important books of their publishing house. They also will be publishing a translation of the new report, The New Silk Road Becomes the World Land-Bridge, Vol. II.
Many high-level officials in China, Helga Zepp-LaRouche not- ed, are well aware of the economic theory of Lyndon LaRouche and very much appreciate the cultural work of the Schiller In- stitute.
Trump: Declassify All Intelligence Related to Russiagate! President Trump has opened the door for a full investigation to take place into what was behind the coup attempt against him run by British and U.S. intelligence agencies. The official announcement came from Press Secretary Sanders: “Today, at the request and recommendation of the Attorney General of the United States, President Donald J. Trump directed the intelligence community to quickly and fully cooperate with the Attorney General’s investigation into the surveillance activities during the 2016 Presidential election. The Attorney General has also been delegated full and complete authority to declassi- fy information pertaining to this investigation....Today’s action will help ensure that all Americans learn the truth about the events that occurred, and the actions that were taken, during the last Presidential election, and will restore confidence in our public institutions.”
This step comes amidst a flurry of developments related to Attorney General Barr moving on his promise to investigate what he famously called “spying” against the Trump campaign during a Senate hearing. Central to these developments are two elements: the illegal manner in which the FBI used the dossier written by former MI6 spy Christopher Steele to obtain a FISA warrant to surveil the campaign, even though leading officials had been informed the dossier was unverified and not credible; and new evidence emerging around the MI6/FBI/CIA sting operation run against Trump official George Papadopou- los, involving two UK-US shared intelligence assets, Josef Mif- sud and Stephan Halper.
Both the Steele dossier and stories fabricated around the contact of Mifsud and Papadopoulos provided the official ex- cuse to open the Russiagate investigations, led by the FBI. Oth- er intelligence has surfaced showing that the story of Russian “interference” was actually cooked up in 2015, long before the official FBI probe was opened in July 2016.
Of particular note is a letter sent on May 22 by Republican Congressman Devin Nunes to President Trump, focused on the British government’s involvement in the Steele dossier, and its use. Nunes refers to the story in the Daily Telegraph on May 19, which reported that Steele personally briefed British in- telligence and government officials on his dossier long before Trump was informed about the charges it contained. If this is true, he writes, the assertions in the Telegraph “raise im- portant questions about the potential role foreign government
officials may have played in spreading the dossier’s false allega- tions....” Nunes also asks about the relationship of Mifsud to British intelligence.
Moreover, during Trump’s planned visit to the United King- dom on June 3, Nunes wrote, “I respectfully request that you ask Prime Minister May about the British government’s knowl- edge of the Steele dossier and whether the British government took any unilateral actions based on information provided by Steele or at the request of any U.S. departments or agencies, in- cluding, but not limited to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.” These developments are provoking major panic among those, such as former heads of the CIA (John Brennan), the NSA (James Clapper) and the FBI (James Comey), who were key U.S. collaborators of Steele and his British controllers high- er up in the intelligence community, as well as among House Democrats, such as Rep. Adam Schiff and Jerry Nadler.
Trump Explicitly Denounces the “Military- Industrial Complex” and Its Perpetual Wars In an interview with Fox-tv News on May 20, President Trump dropped another in a recent series of bombshells, when he de- scribed those pushing for war with Iran -- including some in his administration -- as part of a “military-industrial complex” (MIC), run by people who “like war.” Speaking of the opposi- tion to his orders to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria, first announced in April 2018, he said “if it was up to them, they’d bring thousands of soldiers in...They never want to leave. They always want to fight.”
Trump was responding to a question from Steve Hilton, who asked if he could reassure viewers that he is “not looking for some conflict in Iran.” He reminded Hilton that he is the one who has repeatedly objected to the wars that have gone on for years, especially in the Middle East, supported by both parties, the “endless wars” which he criticized during his campaign for President, and since being elected. As an example of his intent, he said that after defeating the ISIS Caliphate in Syria, he de- cided “to bring our troops back home.” In response, “the place went crazy. You have people here in Washington, they never want to leave.”
An example of that craziness was a non-binding Senate resolution against the withdrawal of U.S. forces. It passed overwhelmingly, by a 70-26 vote, with both Democrats and Republicans voting to defy the President, pushed jointly by Re- publican Majority leader McConnell and Democratic Party lead- er Schumer. Continued resistance to his decision has resulted in a slow down of the troop withdrawal, as 2,000 troops remain in Syria, and 5,000 in Iraq.
On Iran, although Trump has stated he will not go to war, the Pentagon has sent more troops to the Persian Gulf, and the Secretary of State announced new arms deals with Saudi Arabia, in order to better “deter” Tehran.
As for North Korea, Trump, tweeted on May 26 that its rocket launches earlier this month “disturbed some of my peo- ple, and others, but not me. I have confidence that Chairman Kim will keep his promise to me”. His comment “some of my people” was a clear reference to his National Security Adviser John Bolton.
After the European Elections, Time to Turn to Serious Policy Discussion The European elections have come and gone. They were pre- sented as a contest between pro-EU and anti-EU forces, or “europeanists” vs. “populists”, but there was a glaring lack of debate on the substance of what the EU policy should be.
In sum, there will be an increase in “populist” forces in the new European Parliament, but not the sweeping victory that their adversaries were presenting as a total disaster. The two major blocs, the EPP (People’s Pary) and the Socialists and Democrats, will likely no longer have the majority, which has been the case since the founding of the institution. And yet, in terms of power, the parliament in Strasbourg, has very little. It can do little more than approve or reject legislation drawn up by the European Commission. Which has earned it the sobri- quet of “Europe’s biggest talk shop”.
Perhaps the most worrying aspect of the results overall is the surge of the ecologist-Green parties in major EU countries, no- tably France and Germany, on the basis of irrational fears. In Germany, the Greens overtook the Social Democrats to become the second party after the CDU, while in France, Europe Ecologie Les Verts reached 13.5% of the votes. That follows an all-out media barrage in the weeks preceding the vote over the danger of “climate change” for the entire planet. That combined with the youth demonstrations orchestrated throughout the continent on the theme “the world will end in 12 years, or less, if we don’t reduce carbon emissions”. The other mainstream parties lock- stepped into the same campaign, so that in many cases, the vot- ers ended up chosing the original, instead of the copy.
The failure of the EU is perhaps the most obvious in the farcical situation in the United Kingdom. Unable to come to an agreement with Brussels on a Brexit in the three years since the referendum took place, and pending the expected soap-opera resignation of Prime Minister Theresa May, the British popula- tion went to the polls to elect representatives to a parliament they should not even be part of! As expected, the Brexit party of Nigel Farage ended up with 31.7% of the vote, while May’s Conservatives nosedived to a historical low of 9.1% , and La- bour ended up with 14%.
But overall in Europe, there was virtually no debate on the impending financial collapse or the bankruptcy of the banking system, no discussion of joining the New Silk Road, no vision of great projects for developing Europe, not to mention Africa.
As Helga Zepp-LaRouche stressed on May 27, there are clearly two dynamics in the world today, one favoring win-win cooperation and mutual development, and the other intent on saving the dying trans-Atlantic order, and the EU is unfortu- nately part of the wrong one. If it doesn’t change quickly, Eu- rope will soon become irrelevant.
Infrastructure Was a Decisive Theme in the Italian Vote Special attention can be given to the results of the European elections in Italy for various reasons. The Lega led by Matteo Salvini won a sweeping victory with 34% of the vote, while its coalition partner, the Five Star Movement (M5S), which was the first party in national elections last year, came in third after the Democratic Party, with only 17% of the votes. All observers agree that that defeat is due to its opposition to infrastructure projects, starting with the Turin-Lyon high-speed rail tunnel, and the cost-benefit analysis of Transport Minister Toninelli, who may have to resign if he insists on opposing the project. Over the past year, the lack of investments has led to greater unemployment, instead of the job creation promised.
In his press conference after the vote, Matteo Salvini, the absolute winner of these elections, announced that he will not provoke a government crisis, as demanded by Silvio Berlusconi, but that Deputy PM Luigi Di Maio of the M5S will have to accept not only the Turin-Lyon rail line, but also other infrastructure projects which have been blocked over the past years. Europe,
EIR STRATEGIC ALERT WEEKLY NEWSLETTER 2 N°22 / 2019
he said, will have to invest “even more money in infrastructural projects, like the TAV, but also streets, ports and airports. It is a clear mandate: go out there and do it.” He also announced that Italy will “rediscuss European economic parameters” including the 3% on debt. Observers noted also that not only Italy, but also Spain and a number of East European countries, demand an end to the EU fiscal compact and austerity policy.
The Lega had also campaigned against a “Europe of the banks and of finance”. Contrary to the overall trend in the EU, the Green party did not score significant gains, remaining just above the 2% mark, but the M5S took up the same themes.
Marco Zanni, an MEP who was in Washington last November to bring the 217 signatures for Glass-Steagall collected by Mo- viSol, was re-elected and is now in charge of foreign policy for the Lega. He was endorsed by MoviSol, and thanked MoviSol officially on his FB page for its support.
Austrian Government Crisis Reflects Broader Destabilization Pattern The disclosure of a secretly-filmed video showing Austrian Vice Chancellor Heinz Christian Strache during a private encounter with an alleged Russian blonde offering to invest illegal money in Austria, caused the instant resignation of the Freedom Party leader from his government post on May 18. Broadly covered by mainstream media, the affair then led to the pullout of all other Freedom Party members of the Austrian cabinet on May 20 after Interior Minister Kickl was dismissed, and to the an- nouncement of early elections in September.
Despite the impressive 34% of the votes won by Chancellor Sebastian Kurz’ conservative People’s Party in the European elections, he was nonetheless voted out in a no-confidence vote the following day. President Van der Bellen has now named Vice Chancellor Hartwig Löger to name an interim government until the elections.
The video, which was filmed in an Ibiza villa on July 24 2017 (half a year before Strache became Vice Chancellor), was leaked by two leading German (!) media, Sueddeutsche Zeitung and Spiegel, just one week before the European Parliament elec- tions. That timing prompted obvious speculation that the intent of the disclosure was to discredit the Freedom Party and the entire camp of euroskeptic parties in the last days of the elec- tion campaign. And there can be no doubt that the pro-EU parties did use the affair massively to denounce their “populist” adversaries.
However: the prelude to the filming of the video, the or- chestration of original contacts between an aide of Strache’s and the alleged niece of a Russian oligarch back in late 2016, other meetings that took place in Vienna and in Munich, all secretly taped as well, point to something beyond the date of the European elections. The president of the German Bund- estag, Wolfgang Schäuble, when asked about the collapse of the Austrian government, said on May 21: “Somehow, it smells like something like an intelligence service.” After all, quite some logistics and financial power went into the 2017 video trap, Schäuble noted, asking, “Why now? And who did it? And for what purpose?” Being a former Interior Minister and head of the chancellor’s office (with aspects of coordinating intelligence affairs) in Germany, Schäuble may know more about the back- ground to this affair than he has let on so far.
But the aim of the leaking now of a nearly two-year-old video may well be to discredit the entire Austrian government of Chancellor Sebastian Kurz. Ever since taking office in De- cember 2017, that government has pursued its own policy of cooperation with Russia and China, against the views of the
European Commission and in spite of the latter’s constant at- tacks and intrigues. And it was the first in Europe to include the commitment to cooperate with China and the New Silk Road in its government program.
Moreover, the collapse of the government removed the one cabinet minister whom entrepreneurs and logistics firms in particular viewed as their main go-to address on matters of the New Silk Road, namely Transport Minister Norbert Hofer of the Freedom Party. Whether Foreign Minister Karin Kneissl, a professional former top diplomat who joined his cabinet as an independent chosen by the Freedom Party and an outspoken advocate of greater cooperation with Russia, will retain that position in the interim government remains to be seen.
India: Prime Minister Narendra Modi Scores a Spectacular Victory The just-concluded elections to India’s Lower House of Parlia- ment (Lok Sabha ) gave 303 seats out of 542 to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a su- per-sized victory that surprised many analysts. It means a gain of 21 seats compared to 2014. The coalition led by the BJP, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), secured 351 seats, an absolute majority that will allow it to push through policies smoothly.
The victory should be considered spectacular because it pro- vides PM Modi with an uncontestable mandate to carry out what he wants to achieve for India. It is also spectacular be- cause Modi has defied the ever-running current of Indian elec- toral politics where the incumbent party either gets defeated, or comes back to power with a reduced majority. That is due to the fact that the incumbent party has generally been unable to deliver what it had promised to the electorate.
The 2019 election results indicate that Narendra Modi has prospered politically during his incumbency period. Does that suggest that he performed well and delivered what he had promised? There is no doubt within India about his failure to deliver much of what he had promised. He did poorly in gen- erating jobs although he did enhance India’s GDP significantly during his first term. He also performed miserably in India’s farmlands where the majority of voters live. And yet, he se- cured a stronger mandate. Why?
There are many factors to take into account, some of which have little to do with the current head of government. To begin with, the opposition to the BJP was divided and made the mis- take of identifying Modi, and not the BJP, as their target. But Modi is widely trusted as a serious national leader by the Indi- ans -- his hard work-ethic, his drive to push a policy through and his financial cleanliness have never been disputed. On the other hand, many believe that some of Modi’s failures were triggered by of an unresolved power-play within various fac- tions of the BJP, and particularly by the militant anti-Muslim Hindu-chauvinist faction, known as the RSS.
Moreover, none of the opposition parties succeeded in es- tablishing themselves as national parties and have remained stuck as regional parties. Congress Party, once ubiquitous ev- erywhere in India, has now withered to the point of resemblo- ing yet another regional party.
One striking fact of Modi’s victory is that the women in rural areas voted with their feet in favor of him. That means only one thing, which is that over his first five years, women in rural areas who undergo physical hardship in daily life in maintaining their households because of the lack of adequate water, power, transport et al, silently gave their nod in favor of Modi because he has given them some relief -- not enough, but some.
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The key to the success of Modi’s second term will be his abil- ity to bring India fully into the Belt and Road dynamic sweeping Asia. That will also bring closer the perspective of the “Four Power alliance” among China, Russia, India and the United States that Lyndon LaRouche stressed would be required to put an end to geopolitics and the British Empire forever.
Top Expert Confirms Validity of Engineers’ Report on Who Used Chemical Weapons in Syria As we reported last week, a recently leaked report by OPCW engineers indicates that the chemical attack one year ago in Douma, Syria, was staged by the “rebels” then holding the town, and not by the Syrian government forces (cf. SAS 21/19). Although that engineering team had conducted the only inde- pendent, on-the- scene investigation of the alleged attack, their report was deliberately suppressed from the final OPCW docu- ment, which presented a very different version, claiming that the alleged gas canisters were dropped from the air (i.e., by the Syrian air force), and not placed on the ground manually.
The engineers’ report has since been reviewed by Ted Postol, a professor emeritus of Science, Technology, and International Security at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In his preliminary remarks, pending “a much more detailed summary of the engineering report”, Postol wrote that “it suffices to say that the UN OPCW engineering report is completely different from the UN OPCW report on Khan Sheikhoun [a faked chemi- cal attack blamed on the Syrian government a year earlier than the Douma hoax], which is distinguished by numerous claims about explosive effects that could only have been made by tech- nically illiterate individuals. In very sharp contrast, the voices that come through the engineering report are those of highly knowledgeable and sophisticated experts.
“A second issue that is raised by the character of the OPCW engineering report on Douma is that it is entirely unmentioned in the report that went to the UN Security Council. This omis- sion is very serious, as the findings of that report are critical to the process of determining attribution. There is absolutely no reason to justify the omission of the engineering report in the OPCW account to the UN Security Council as its policy implica- tions are of extreme importance....”
At the time, the alleged chemical weapons attack by the Assad government in Douma prompted retaliatory air strikes against Syrian targets by the United States, the United Kingdom and France. Now, again, charges have surfaced in the trans-Atlantic world that Damascus is preparing to use similar weapons in its final assault on the Idlib province against Islamic State and other jihadi groups. It is likely in that context that the OPCW engineers’ report was finally leaked to the Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media.
Sweden: An Exceptional Event on Belt and Road The 2nd Belt and Road Forum which was held on May 22 in Stockholm was a powerful demonstration of the great interest in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and cooperation with China in Sweden, a country whose political elites and mainstream me- dia are still skeptical and oblivious to the BRI. Thirty-three dip- lomats, including 13 ambassadors from four continents, joined business representatives, academicians and others to form an audience of over 100 persons. This is unprecedented in Swe- den when it comes to events concerning the BRI.
The event was organized by the Belt and Road Executive Group for Sweden (BRIX - www.brixsweden.com), an associa- tion comprised of different groups and business associations
which was founded in the framework of a May 2018 seminar organized by the Schiller Institute, in order to promote Swe- den’s participation in the Belt and Road Initiative.
The BRIX is headed by the Schiller Institute Chairman in Swe- den Ulf Sandmark, who opened the morning session, pointing out that the BRI is not just railways or trade routes but “devel- opment corridors” and an opportunity for Sweden to get back to such fundamentals as respect for sovereignty, science and development of the productive powers of labor”.
The keynote speaker was the Chinese Ambassador to Swe- den HE Gui Congyou, who reported about the massive turnout and success of the Second Belt and Road Forum in Beijing and the rapid growth of trade between China, the BRI countries and also Sweden. “The BRI is not a ‘debt trap’”, Ambassador Gui said. “On the contrary, many countries are stepping out of the ‘underdevelopment trap’ by participating in the BRI.” At the conclusion of his speech, he again invited Sweden to join the BRI.
The Ambassador of Pakistan Mr. Hussain Dayo then gave an enthusiastic report on the transformation Pakistan is undergo- ing thanks to the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project, which is in the forefront of the BRI corridors. The roads and railways being built accelerate growth and stabil- ity in many regions in Pakistan, while the opening of the first coal mines and the construction of first-class coal power plants, have provided much needed power for the export-oriented tex- tile industry.
Portuguese Ambassador Henrique Silveira Borges thanked China for standing by his nation in the severe financial crisis 2008. He also reported on the MOU signed last December be- tween his country and China, and plans to expand the Portu- guese port of Sines in the contet of the Maritime Silk Road.
A perspective of the attitude in Nordic countries towards the BRI and how it is shaped on the governmental and media level was provided by Thore Vestby, a former member of the Nor- wegian parliament. He explained the great benefits Norway has reaped from agreeing with China on non-interference in inter- nal affairs, and ending the 7-year diplomatic and trade “freeze” China imposed on Norway after the latter awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to a Chinese dissident in 2010.
Hussein Askary, board member of the BRIX (and Southwest Asia coordinator of the Schiller Institute), together with Lars Aspling, a member of BRIX and Swedish entrepreneur, pro- vided an overview of the BRI. Aspling started with outlining the historically unprecedented industrialization process that has taken place in China in the past 30 years, without which it is very difficult to understand the BRI and China’s goals behind it. Askary presented the impact of the BRI in Africa’s transforma- tion and joint Chinese-European cooperation projects. “There is a new Africa emerging now, and in the future will be the greatest workshop and market in the world with a 3-billion population in 2050”, Askary emphasized.
E.I.R. STRATEGIC ALERT www.eir.de Published by: E.I.R.GmbH, Bahnstr. 4, 65205 Wiesbaden Tel.: 0611/73650, Fax: 0611/9740935, 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
EIR STRATEGIC ALERT WEEKLY NEWSLETTER 4 N° 22 / 2019
