NEOCON CRAZIES PUSH WAR PROVOCATIONS, UNDERMINE PRESIDENT TRUMP: THEY MUST BE DEFEATED!

January 26, 2018 in Columnists, News by RBN Staff

 

by: Harley Schlanger (email him for his special newsletters: harleysch@gmail.co)
January 26 — In the first weeks of the new year, four inter-related dynamics of the global strategic situation are coming to a head, in a manner which means that, unless the coup underway against U.S. President Donald Trump is stopped, the world is moving on a fast track to a potential nuclear confrontation between the United States, and Russia and China.
First is the ongoing financial component of the crisis.  Despite the lies from leading Trans-Atlantic governments, from the swindlers of the Too Big to Fail banks and shadow banking operations, and from their facilitators running central banks — such as the Bank of England, the U.S. Federal Reserve, and the European Central Bank — all proclaiming that a robust global economic recovery is underway, the debt-bloated financial system is in reality headed for a collapse more devastating than that of 2008.  There has been a proliferation of warnings to that effect, which echo the analysis of U.S. economist Lyndon LaRouche, who accurately forecast the collapse in 2008 of the mortgage-backed securities bubble.
This was further usefully amplified by the former chief economist of the Bank for International Settlements, William White, who told the {Daily Telegraph’s} Ambrose Evans Pritchard on the sidelines of this week’s Davos gathering that the collapse of the present debt bubble is inevitable, due to the “Catch 22” caused by the virtually zero percent interest policy of the central bankers.  This has been “pouring more fuel on the fire,” White said.  “Central banks are now caught in a ‘debt trap.’  They cannot keep holding rates near zero as global inflation pressures build because that will lead to an even more perilous financial bubble, but they cannot easily raise interest rates either because it risks blowing up the system.”  White has repeatedly argued that the economic models in use today for trading such financial instruments as derivatives, swaps, etc., are terribly flawed, and that they would lead to “unintended consequences”, including possibly a chain-reaction debt collapse.  Like LaRouche, White forecast the financial crash of 2008.
Even as the financiers and corporate elites are toasting each other in Davos for their genius in running up the world’s biggest bubble ever, there must be an awareness among some of them that the collapse of this empire of debt could mean the end of their dominance and privilege, perhaps giving them an “apres moi, le deluge” moment!
Second, is the resurgence of the utopian neocons, from both inside and outside the Trump administration, scheming to prevent the president from fulfilling his campaign promise to end their domination of foreign and military policy.  Trump’s pledge to seek positive, collaborative relations with Russia and China poses an existential threat to the neocons and their imperial financial and corporate patrons, who have employed geopolitical manipulations to maintain their power since the end of the Second World War.  They dominated the strategic policy of the Bush and Obama administrations, launching numerous wars, running a coup in Ukraine, extending the NATO deployment eastward to the borders of Russia, and engaging in a confrontational military posture with China in the South China Sea.  During his campaign, Trump warned that the provocative policies and the “endless wars” of the two previous administrations would be continued were Hillary Clinton elected.  He pledged he would put an end to “regime change wars”, which he charged had cost trillions of dollars and resulted in millions of casualties, worsening the security situation facing the U.S. and its allies.  He also promised to establish friendly relations with Vladimir Putin, to collaborate in defeating terrorism.
It was this promise from Trump which provoked the real collusion, between top British intelligence officials and Obama’s U.S. intelligence operatives, and the Clinton campaign, to smear him as a puppet of Putin.  This collusion produced the nonstop promotion of the fairy tale of “Russian meddling” in the 2016 election, and Trump’s collusion with Putin’s meddlers.  When it became clear to them that, even with a full-blown “Russia-gate” offensive against him, Trump would continue to pursue good relations with Putin and China’s President Xi Jinping, the neocons moved their war drive into high gear (more on this below).
The third component of the strategic situation, which has fueled the desperation of the imperial establishment, is that their pushing of Russiagate has failed to produce the desired results.  Instead of breaking Trump’s will, forcing him to submit to them, resign or be impeached, he has fought back, defending not just his presidency, but the voters who cast their ballots to elect him, who supported his rejection of the policies of his predecessors.  With the increasing exposure of the corruption of those running Russiagate, of the anti-Trump FBI officials, of Obama and his team, such as James Clapper and John Brennan, and special counsel Robert Mueller, the possibility exists that it is these officials who will face felony charges, and not Trump — adding to their sense of urgency that something must be done to maintain the primacy of geopolitics in defining international relations.  When all else fails, they revert to their default position, of launching geopolitical confrontations and wars, and using the chaos and misery that ensues to consolidate and maintain their influence and power.
There is a fourth component driving their desperation: the spectacular success of the Russian military intervention in Syria, to defeat ISIS and Al Qaeda, when the neocons had predicted it would entangle Russia in a quagmire; and the ongoing forward motion of China’s Belt-and-Road Initiative (BRI), which has offered the world an alternative to the failed policies of the “free trade”, bubble economies produced by speculation, and austerity.  Growing recognition of the gap between the failure of the British free trade model and the success of China’s promotion of the science of physical economy has already convinced many of the less-developed countries to join the new paradigm offered by the BRI — and now, many governments in eastern and southern Europe, and even France, are welcoming the Chinese.  Were Trump to bring the U.S. into full cooperation with the new paradigm represented by the BRI, the old imperial geopolitical system will finally be defeated and tossed aside.
THE WAR DRIVE ESCALATES
The December 28 issue of Neue Solidarität (NS) published an article critical of the new U.S. National Security Strategy (NSS) document, released earlier that month, in which Russia and China are identified as the leading adversaries of the United States (“Neocons verstärken die geopolitische Konfrontation”, NS, 28 Dezember, 2017).  The doctrine asserts that they “want to shape a world antithetical to U.S. interests.”  In speaking to a British think tank about the new policy statement, National Security Adviser General H.R. McMaster, who presided over the drafting of the document, huffed that, with this new doctrine “Geopolitics are back with a vengeance.”
This was followed by the release of a National Defense Strategy (NDS) paper by the Defense Department on January 19, which provides direction for the Pentagon on how to implement the strategy outlined in the NSS.  It states that the “central challenge to U.S. prosperity and security is the reemergence of long-term, strategic competition by what the National Security Strategy classifies as revisionist powers.  It is increasingly clear that China and Russia want to shape a world consistent with their authoritarian model — gaining veto authority over other nations’ economic, diplomatic and security decisions.”  It defines the “principle priorities” as mobilizing U.S. military, economic, financial, diplomatic, law enforcement, intelligence and “information” assets against Russia and China.
Continuing in this vein, it accuses China of “leveraging military modernization, influence operations, and predatory economics to coerce neighboring countries to reorder the Indo-Pacific region to their advantage,” seeking “regional hegemony.”  It charges China and Russia with “undermining the international order from within the system, by exploiting its benefits while simultaneously undercutting its principles and rules of the road.”  This latter statement is an implicit attack on China’s promotion of the BRI.
These two documents are an explicit rejection of the strategic policy enunciated by Donald Trump, both as a candidate and during his tenure as President.  On numerous occasions, Trump said he believes “it would be a great thing” if the U.S. had good relations with Russia and China.  He has forged what he describes as a “great personal relationship” with Xi Jinping, and has had limited, but fruitful, interactions with Putin.  Despite his efforts, the Russian and Chinese governments were compelled to respond sharply to the two documents.  Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov said such “confrontational concepts and strategies” are “regrettable,” though he qualified that by saying that Russia remains “open for dialogue”, and he and Tillerson remain in regular contact.  Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said of Tillerson’s remarks in Paris, in which he blamed Russia for alleged use of chemicals weapons by Syria, “we categorically disagree with the approach employed by the Americans, who have actually swept under the rug any real probe into previous cases of chemical weapons use.”  Deputy Foreign Minister Ryabkov said Tillerson’s remarks were “absolutely unacceptable,” adding that “on this basis, we cannot work with the United States.”
The Chinese ridiculed the notion that they are seeking military domination in Asia, saying that for them, “Peace and development are the themes of this era, and are also the shared aspirations of mankind.  However, if some people look at the world through a Cold War, zero-sum game mindset, then they are destined to see only conflict and confrontation.”  The last point accurately summarizes the outlook of the neocons.
Both the Russians and Chinese have emphasized that, despite the hostile tone of these documents, they recognize it is still necessary to work with Trump, who they see as limited by the continuing influence of the neocons from the Bush and Obama-Hillary Clinton administrations, and by the effect of Russia-gate on his freedom to act on his stated intentions.
“SHARP POWER”
These two documents, as well as a forthcoming Nuclear Posture Review, which purportedly will call for reviving the dangerous idiocy of incorporating use of low-yield nuclear weapons, to carry out a “limited nuclear war”, as a strategy for the Pacific theater, directly reflect the outlook of the neocons.  They were expecting a smooth transition from the Obama administration into one under Hillary Clinton, as she made her hostility to Putin’s Russia and against China a major feature of her campaign.  As Secretary of State, Clinton was a full-throated supporter of the unilateralist world-view of the neocons.  This view originated with the Project for a New American Century, which demanded that U.S. military and diplomacy enforce a global “Pax Americana”, with the U.S. as the dominant power, and it shaped the strategic policies of the Bush and Obama presidencies.  Trump’s victory temporarily disrupted that transition.
Text messages from anti-Trump FBI operatives Strzok and Page demonstrate that Russia-gate was being prepared, during the campaign, as an “insurance policy” in case Trump won.  A central feature of the anti-Trump campaign was the use of a fake dossier provided by British intelligence operative Christopher Steele, which alleged that Trump was under the control of Putin.  The British-FBI-“Deep State”-Clinton campaign collusion against Trump was fully, publicly activated when Clinton was rejected in the November election.
However, unfortunately, the infiltration of key institutional positions by neocons throughout the government, and the proliferation of well-funded think tanks and consulting groups, many of which were created during the mid-1980s to promote geopolitical doctrines, insured that they would be well-placed to undermine Trump’s intentions.   These groups were aligned with the Bush networks in the Republican Party and mega-speculator George Soros on the “liberal” side, and operated in conjunction with the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), created in 1983 and funded by the Congress, to promote “democracy.”  Neocon spokesmen for the Cato Institute, the Heritage Foundation and the Foundation for Defense of Democracy (FDD) are echoing the same line.  The FDD recently announced the hiring of a new CEO, Victoria Nuland, who played a leading role in coordinating the coup in Ukraine, in which neocon and Soros networks backed ultra-right forces, neo-Nazi networks, which are now being armed by the U.S.
Typical of NED operations was its role in supporting the “Arab Spring” and the coup against the democratically-elected government in Ukraine — in both of these operations, Republicans and Democrats worked together, as in the collaboration between the Clinton State Department and “conservative” Republicans in the overthrow of the Qadaffi regime in Libya, in which the U.S., Britain and France helped bring jihadist forces into power, after destroying that country and murdering its leader.
The most recent public eruption of this gang of anti-Trump regime changers occurred as the two national security doctrines were unveiled, under the label of “Sharp Power.”  The term was coined by the NED, which sponsored a conference on December 5, titled “Sharp Power: Rising Authoritarian Influence.”   The threat of China’s use of “sharp power” was featured in a December 16, 2017 cover story in London’s {Economist} magazine, under the title “Sharp Power: The New Shape of Chinese Influence.”  In the lead article, Sharp Power is defined as the penetration and subversion of politics, media and academia, covertly presenting a positive image of the country employing it (i.e., China and Russia), while “misrepresenting and distorting information to suppress dissent and debate…it is pervasive, it breeds self-censorship and it is hard to nail down proof that it is the work of the Chinese government”!  It claims that it is used “to shape debate abroad in areas where it wants to muzzle criticism, such as [criticism of] its political system, human-rights abuses and expansive territorial claims.”
In addition to the {Economist} cover story, {Foreign Affairs} magazine, published by the Council on Foreign Relations, has run at least four articles in December and January, promoting this narrative.  The latest, on January 18, 2018, is titled “Containing Russia Again: An Adversary Attacked the U.S. — It’s Time to Respond.”  The title is an explicit reference to the Cold War geopolitical policy of containment, which members of the CFR helped draft and promote beginning with the end of World War II.
It didn’t take long for this theme to become a “talking point” in the so-called mainstream media and the Congress.  Josh Rogin wrote an op ed in the {Washington Post} on December 10, titled “China’s foreign influence operations are causing alarm in Washington.”  Rogin covers the activity of the Congressional-Executive Committee on China (CECC), whose co-chairman, Senator Marco Rubio told him that China is engaged in “an all-out effort to not simply promote themselves in a better light but to target Americans within the United States.”  The CECC held a hearing on the “Long Arm of China”.  In discussing this on FOX NEWS, Rubio told host Laura Ingraham, “The biggest threat to America’s electoral system — and quite frankly America at large — is not Russia.  It’s China — it’s basically infiltrated its way into all of our technologies across the supply chain.  They make anything the Russians can do look like child’s play.”  He did not exempt Russia from attack, saying that “there’s no doubt the Russians tried to interfere in our election.”
Rubio and fellow neocon favorite Sen. Ted Cruz — both of whom were defeated by Trump during the Republican Party primaries — are targeting in particular the Confucius Institutes operating on U.S. campuses, saying they are taking advantage of “cash-strapped” universities to set up China-studies programs, to brainwash vulnerable students.  Cruz led a successful campaign to cut funding from Chinese contributors to a program at the University of Texas.
In her weekly Schiller Institute webcast on January 25, Schiller Institute President Helga Zepp LaRouche called for an urgent mobilization to defeat the neocons and their “liberal” collaborators, hitting them where they are most vulnerable, as they are fully exposed as for their role in organizing and backing the unconstitutional regime change coup against President Trump.  Failure to do so, she warned, will have disastrous consequences for humanity, as the war provocations they are launching will only escalate, if they succeed in bringing down President Trump (webcast can be seen at newparadigm.schillerinstitute.com).