ZEPP-LAROUCHE WEBCAST

False Flags, Fake News,
Regime Change in Washington Exposed as Made in London

[Print version of this transcript]

This is the edited transcript of the April 19, 2018 Schiller Institute New Paradigm webcast, an interview with the founder of the Schiller Institutes, Helga Zepp-LaRouche. She was interviewed by Harley Schlanger. A video of the webcast is available.

Harley Schlanger: Hello. I’m Harley Schlanger from the Schiller Institute. Welcome to this week’s international webcast, featuring our President and founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche.

When we spoke with you last, we were possibly on the verge of a world war breaking out. One of the things that Helga emphasized last week, was that if we could get through this time, there would be an opportunity to take down the British Imperial apparatus which is behind the war drive. In the last few days we’ve seen an exposure of the lies coming from Britain. We have been out front exposing those lies, but now various institutions of governments, even in some media, are catching on.

So I think this is where we should start: We’re now at a point where these exposés give us the opportunity we have needed for a long time, to take apart the British Imperial geopolitical apparatus. Helga, what’s the potential for that happening, now?

Helga Zepp-LaRouche: It is quite amazing. More and more countries, governments, and also political forces are speaking out against the fact that many of these operations were orchestrated by the British. The role of the British government and MI6 in Russiagate is fully in the limelight; the whole Skripal affair is also now basically being questioned by many as to who really perpetrated the attack; and the narrative of chemical weapons use by the Assad government, which was the supposed reason for the recent military strikes against Syria, is also falling apart. So I think there is an increasing awareness that there is one country which is really on the war path against Russia, and—despite nice words, by implication, also against China. And that I think is a very important turn.

As a matter of fact, this afternoon, there was a press briefing by the Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, who went into a lengthy description of all the British operations, starting with operations against the Soviet Union, the British work with the fascists in Ukraine, and then also more recent cases. So it’s a long history, and I think one has to really look at the speech which British Prime Minister Theresa May made last November, where she talked about a new “Global Britain.” May just appointed a new Chief of the Defense Staff, Gen. Sir Nicholas Carter, who is making a complete tirade against Russia, claiming Russia is involved in all evil deeds, from corruption to cyber-attacks. It’s really a rampage. The force behind the war drive is the British government—self-exposed, acting now in its own name, but also the neo-cons, who are trying to manipulate President Trump into their cause, despite the fact that Trump was elected on the basis of his promise not to conduct interventionist wars any more.

So it’s really a huge battle that’s going on. But I think the exposure of all of these British lies is a new phenomenon, and it also makes those governments that gave unconditional support to the military strikes against Syria, look really bad. They lost all credibility, because they don’t care for truth, and when they join in these groundless attacks against Russia, I think it will lead further to the collapse of the Western system, because many people see that these governments cannot be trusted. That’s not a good thing, but that’s what’s happening.

Schlanger: Before we go into some of the specifics, it’s important for you to identify for our viewers, the cause of this whole operation, because you’ve taken the lead in making sure people understand that this is not just mistakes being made, but an intent. If you look at the common purpose behind Russiagate, the Skripal affair, the Douma events, it is good to review here the essential argument being put forward by people like May, Nick Carter, the British empire, and the neo-cons in the United States.

Zepp-LaRouche: With the collapse of the Soviet Union, these forces thought that they could impose a unipolar world, get rid of all governments opposing such a system by regime change, color revolution, interventionist wars, which is what we have seen, especially in the 16 years of Bush Jr. and Obama. Obama even said that Russia was just a regional power. Nobody expected Russia to fully return to the world stage, which Putin succeeded in doing, by turning around much of Russia’s economy, but also by re-establishing a strategic balance with the West, with NATO.

China’s rise was also underestimated by these same arrogant people, and now you have a flood of articles about the “new rise of China,” or the “new proposals of the New Silk Road.” These developments are not new; they have been going on almost five years.

You are seeing right now a realization, by the geopolitical faction of the neo-cons in the United States; the Democrats, who are mostly acting as neo-cons also; and the geopolitical British faction in Europe, that they are really in a rearguard battle, trying to prevail with their system, when their system is clearly inferior, outdated, and not attractive to many countries in the world, which see it much more advantageous to work with China and also Russia, in building up their own economies. This is really the battle, and it is very dangerous to the extent the lies being used by the British and being seconded by France’s President Macron are accepted. They’ve gotten Trump temporarily roped into this scheme. I think the more these lies are exposed, the less they are effective, and the less is the danger of their being repeated in some new dirty trick.

European Opinion Opposes Syrian Bombing

Schlanger: One of the issues that the Russians in particular have been pursuing, is demanding a full investigation, both of the Skripal affair and the alleged April 7 chemical attack in Douma, Syria. There is a team from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Warfare (OPCW) that’s gone into Syria to take a look, and this is causing a real panic from the British, isn’t it?

Zepp-LaRouche: Especially now that some of their own people, such as Robert Fisk from the Independent, but also some former ambassadors, all point to the fact that the White Helmets outfit is really a terrorist organization; they work as humanitarian first responders by day, but turn into killers by night. This was the formulation used by one of the most famous Chinese journalists, Yang Rui. Also former British ambassador to Syria Peter Ford, and Craig Murray, former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, and also even some former military—are all asking the question, cui bono, who benefits? Assad surely had no motive to use chemical weapons in Douma. Why would Assad do that? His ally, Russia, stated that under Russian supervision Syria got rid of all its chemical weapons, and therefore why would Assad risk the relationship with Russia by using chemical weapons? Also, the timing of the alleged attack would not make any sense, either, because Assad was already almost in total control of the major parts of Syria, so why would he, at a point that he’s winning, risk bringing down the thunder of Western anger against him?

No, the cui bono is clearly on the side of those who want to disrupt that process. The White Helmets are not only completely a terrorist organization working with al-Qaeda and some other groupings, but they are also financed by the British government, they are financed by the State Department’s USAID, and there have even been reports that they were instigated to speed up this phony scenario in order to create a pretext for the missile attack.

So this is all coming out. While Theresa May is trying to play the super-hawk against Russia on the one hand, at the same time she is portraying herself as initiating a golden era between Great Britain and China. There was a telephone discussion in which President Xi talked about this idea of a “golden era” between the two countries, but then he said, that in the case of the alleged chemical weapons attack in Syria, there must be an absolutely thorough investigation to establish the truth of what really happened, which will stand up historically.

This was a very good move, and I think the possibility is good that the whole story will come out and be the subject of an international trial—because these are war crimes, what has happened. You cannot attack a sovereign country without UN Security Council agreement, or in self-defense. This missile attack was a clear violation of international law. It was a violation of the UN Charter. This is now causing a gigantic counter-reaction. I’m absolutely confident that the truth will come out.

Schlanger: Theresa May has a conflict of interest in terms of her relationship with the military-industrial complex. Why don’t you fill our viewers in on this? I don’t think it’s gotten much coverage.

Zepp-LaRouche: She is married to Philip May, who is one of the top managers of an outfit called Capital Group, which happens to be the largest investor in BAE Systems, the largest weapons producer in Great Britain. Capital Group is also the second largest investor in Lockheed Martin. BAE, and probably also Lockheed Martin, made a great profit from these military attacks, because eight missiles produced by BAE Systems were used in the strike against Syria, and as a consequence, the stock prices of these companies skyrocketed.

So, if you have a prime minister who can declare war and her husband makes a profit from it, I think you have a clear case of conflict of interest, if not something worse. That should also be investigated. Yang Rui, the Chinese journalist I mentioned earlier, pointed to the fact that one should investigate the role of the military-industrial complex in this whole affair. That requires some limelight. Here you have a clear violation of international law, not only geopolitical reasons, but also personal profit-making, filling their own pockets.

Schlanger: As your husband Lyndon LaRouche once said, if you have something to hide, you shouldn’t go out attacking other people, and certainly that’s the case in dealing with May and the neo-cons. There was an attempt to get the European Union to support the U.S.-UK-France strike: That didn’t go too well, did it?

Zepp-LaRouche: No. As a matter of fact, public opinion in Europe is, by a vast majority, against this, because people sense this is something horribly wrong and could lead to a war with Russia if it’s not stopped. That’s why the attempt by the EU foreign ministers, at their meeting on Monday to get an after-the fact resolution in support of these military strikes, did not function. Two important EU foreign ministers, from Italy and Belgium, opposed the resolution, arguing that it would unnecessarily aggravate the tensions with Russia. A number of European Union foreign ministers whose countries do not belong to NATO also opposed the resolution—Austria, Finland, Sweden, Cyprus, Malta, and Ireland.

The case of Austria is very important. Austria’s Foreign Minister, Karin Kneissl, blasted this, insisting that it was a violation of international law and that Austria would absolutely not go along. As our viewers may know, a high-level delegation from the Austrian government has just returned from a very successful trip to China, where both the President and the Chancellor agreed with Xi Jinping that Austria and China would develop the closest relationship in Belt and Road cooperation.

So I think this is one more sign that the famous unity of the European Union does not exist. It doesn’t exist on many issues, but fortunately also not on this one, and it just shows you that this EU construction is a terrible one, and the sooner it changes into something better, based on a higher principle, the better off the world will be.

Syria Looks to China

Schlanger: The White Helmet charge of Assad’s use of chemical weapons came right after President Trump said twice in a week that he’s preparing to move troops out of Syria. He wants the United States out, fulfilling his campaign promise. This was something that was picked up by Tucker Carlson at Fox News, Roger Stone in his commentary, and Pat Lang in his Sic SemperTyrannis blog article. After the attack, the U.S. Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley, who is one of the hardest-core neo-cons (she was a supporter of Jeb Bush during the Presidential campaign, who somehow became the U.S. ambassador to the UN), appeared on the Sunday talk shows, saying the United States is going to stay in Syria. This was what French President Macron had boasted: that he had persuaded Trump to stay in Syria.

But the very next day Trump said that’s not the case. He said that the United States is not going to stay in Syria, that he does want the troops out. Haley also said there will be new sanctions against Russia, but Trump walked back from that also, saying that’s not the case. All this indicates a fairly intensive fight in the United States with the neo-cons doing everything they can to break any possibility of Trump and Putin talking.

You made the point, and I believe this was picked up in the Russia media, that Trump and Putin should meet as quickly as possible. How do you see something like that working?

Zepp-LaRouche: Well, it is very clear that Trump is in a very difficult position, because after the FBI raid on the offices of his personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, some are now worried that if Special Counsel Robert Mueller threatens Cohen with a life sentence in prison, as Alan Dershowitz, the constitutional lawyer, said, this would be aimed at turning Cohen into a canary who sings. When threatened with a life sentence in prison some people are not strong enough to stick to their loyalties, so this is a big concern. We have experienced these tactics sufficiently ourselves to know how this works.

Trump is surrounded by people who are trying to get him back to the Obama agenda. Roger Stone highlighted this problem in his recent article. He said that a concerted effort is being made by the neo-cons to lure Trump into scenarios that would force him to undo his election campaign promise to have a better relationship with Russia, and that would also damage his very good relationship with Xi Jinping.

So how do you outflank this? Everything—world peace, the question of the future of mankind—depends on the most important countries, the United States, China, and Russia, having better relationships with each other. The best way to outflank all these petty and nasty attacks would be for the proposed meeting between Trump and Putin to be convened very soon. I’m absolutely convinced that these are two people, despite all the criticism one might have of either of them—I’m not saying that you have to support every step that either is taking—but it should be clear that both of them have proven many times over that they have better instincts. Without Putin’s intervention in Syria, we would still have a total madhouse, and possibly a situation in Libya where terrorists would be completely in command. Putin has proven he can strategically outflank a seemingly hopeless situation.

Trump, despite all of this Russiagate, and unbelievable treason from many Republicans—the Democrats are pretty obvious—has proven himself to be quite resilient. I’m absolutely convinced that if these two were to get together in a lengthy summit meeting, they would come up with solutions for all of these problems, including the very important factor of the strategic partnership between China and Russia.

Sometimes, when you have a seeming contradiction, on a lower level, that seems impossible to solve, you just have to catapult the debate to a higher level. I think that if Putin and Trump were to meet very soon, this would be the most beneficial thing that could happen.

Schlanger: Where do things go from here in Syria? There was a statement issued the other day indicating that the Syrian government is looking at the Chinese model and would like to have something like that. The Chinese have previously stated they’re willing to come in and help reconstruct. Do you think it’s possible that some of the European countries would get involved with China in the reconstruction effort in Syria?

Zepp-LaRouche: Italy is already doing it. We have discussed the Chinese-Italian cooperation in the Transaqua project. Some other nations are having a harder time. German Chancellor Mrs. Merkel, who has just fully endorsed the military strike, which was really a terrible thing, now says she wants to meet with President Putin to mediate between the United States and Russia, and also wants to play a role in the reconstruction of Syria. The position is still that Assad has to be gotten rid of. I don’t see any indications that either the European Union or the German government is willing to change the failed paradigm of geopolitics.

The Syrian Ambassador to Beijing, on the other hand, said that Syria welcomes not only the role of China in the reconstruction of Syria, but that Syria wants to adopt the Chinese economic model because of the strong role of the state, and the fact that the state in the Chinese model protects the lower and poorer layers of society, the weaker layers of society. I think this is very good.

I wish that reasoning would enter the minds of some of the European governments and that they would join hands. I have not yet seen any sign of that yet. The German EU Commissioner for Budget and Human Resources, Günter Öttinger, has just said that Europe should not be a “fortress Europe,” but Europe should bring development to Africa. But then he said that this should be done in order to not abandon the African continent to the Chinese, who only follow their egotistical aims. As long as that kind of idiotic thinking prevails, I don’t think there is any solution.

Everyone should recognize what China is actually doing, and drop their prejudices. Compared to what the West is doing, the moral quality of what China is doing for its own people and for other nations is vastly superior.

Protect Cognitive Power of the People

Schlanger: I think it’s fair to say the thinking of German industry and the Mittelstand is very far ahead of the German government, because they have welcomed Chinese involvement in Duisburg, Hamburg, and other places in Germany, where the Chinese are involved in a series of economic projects.

That brings us to China-U.S. relations. There was a very significant conference at the Brookings Institution just yesterday, in which we made a very important intervention. The topic was U.S.-China collaboration. What happened there, Helga? What can you tell us?

Zepp-LaRouche: The China Development Bank President was there and the China Report 2018 of the International Financial Forum (IFF) was presented at this Brookings event. One of our colleagues, Mr. Paul Gallagher, intervened and asked if it was not a good idea for the Chinese to help with infrastructure development in the United States, by using the Chinese holdings in U.S. Treasury bonds for investment in an infrastructure bank or a National Bank. The representative of the Brookings Institution was relatively surprised by such an approach. The Chinese panelist said it was a very important question and elaborated the idea. He fully endorsed the proposal, saying it would work very well.

It’s very important that this was put on the table. This approach is what we have been proposing since 2015. The best possible way to put the U.S.-China relationship on a solid ground in terms of cooperation with the Belt and Road Initiative, would be Chinese investment in infrastructure in the United States, and in turn, have U.S. investments in joint ventures in the countries along the Belt and Road.

This discussion is absolutely urgent. You could get rid of the trade imbalance by having more trade, not just bilateral trade, but multilateral arrangements in the New Silk Road. This is very important.

Let us go back to the higher moral approach of China for a moment. I know some of our viewers will get upset about what I’m about to say, but I find it very, very useful that China has now launched several campaigns—one against Internet addiction; another against hip-hop, saying that hip-hop counterculture is just about white powder, women, sex, and violence. It promotes vulgar and low taste. Therefore it should not be on the Internet or TV channels, and should not be promoted. The Chinese government is calling on companies to promote healthy, beneficial, and truthful knowledge instead.

That’s a good idea. The media is not the devil, it can be used to promote useful education instead of dragging people down with terrible violence and crime, and with awful ugliness, as is happening now in the West, in almost all movies and entertainment.

And China also has a campaign against quiz shows, because so many people are participating in banal quiz shows, saying this is also bad because it promotes Mammonism, which is money-greed, the search for riches. This is also being discouraged.

I think it’s very good. Government should have a role in promoting the common good of the people. I think that the famous liberal model of the West has been hailed by some as the basis for legitimizing interventionist wars against countries that have different social models. I think it’s much better if a government protects its own people against things which are clearly bad for the cognitive powers of its own population. Nothing would be lost if some of these terrible things did not exist. The youth would be in better shape. President Trump has taken up the issue of violent video games as one of the contributing factors in violence in the schools.

So I think this is one of the areas in which a useful cultural dialogue among countries could also take place: How do you protect your own population against such bad influences? This is a very important component of the strategic picture.

Courage of the World-Historical Individual

Schlanger: It would also be helpful if the media would stop lying. Helga, I have one more question for you, which is something that I get quite a bit in the radio interviews I’m doing: The events of the last couple of weeks have caused a lot of people who were hoping that we were moving into the New Paradigm, to lose their hope, lose their optimism. I had a number of people say to me, “How can you still be optimistic, when we’re seeing the United States once again, whether willingly or not, getting suckered into a war and launching missiles against a sovereign state, which has not invited us in?”

I have my way of answering, but I’d like to hear your answer, because the sustaining of optimism in order to continue to fight for the good, is something people have to work on continuously. Otherwise, they’re dragged down by the media.

How do you approach this situation, and why are you still optimistic?

Zepp-LaRouche: There is right now, in some European political layers, a big debate going on: Has the “deep state” in the United States won already, or are there still some options for Trump to stick to his announced policies?

Well, what people call the “deep state,” which is what President Eisenhower had named the “military-industrial complex,” combined with the intelligence services belonging to the British Empire faction, is still very strong.

But on the other hand, I think they have never been so exposed, and at a time when ordinary people have the feeling that everything is falling apart. Trust in government is collapsing, pensions are not seen as secure, there is fear of a new financial crisis much worse than 2008. In the West, people sense that there is no trustworthy institution they can turn to. In such a moment, when people realize who are the war-mongers, and that they’re pushing war against Russia using lies, I think this can completely backfire. Once the lies are dismantled and the people pushing the lies are ostracized, I think there can be a return to decent international relations among nations, including reviving the UN Charter, and reviving international law. Sometimes you need a shock like the present experience, to move to a New Paradigm of international relations. I think that is absolutely something on the horizon.

I’m not sure it will go as peacefully as it did with the collapse of the Soviet Union, which, after all, without using tanks, agreed to the re-unification of Germany and the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact.

I don’t have a clear idea of how the present collapse phase of the Western system will end up. There is a new dynamic; more and more countries are not going along any more. The East European countries, the Central European countries, the Balkan countries, the South European countries, Switzerland, Austria—all want to have a new kind of international relations. The more countries that have that kind of determination, and the more that in countries that are not yet there, such as Germany, France, and Great Britain, people mobilize and speak out to stick to the truth, change will occur. Many people are in motion right now. There are many appeals being circulated declaring, “we have to return to reason.” We have to have good relationships with Russia and China. Without these two countries, no problem on this planet can be solved.

The more people engage in such discourse and get active, the better. That’s why every time I speak to you, I call on you to join the Schiller Institute, help us get these video webcasts around, spread the word, and get active. I am absolutely convinced—in that sense I am a Leibnizian—believing that a great evil always generates the potential for an even greater good, because that’s the law of the universe. I think the universe is made in such a way that there is a tremendous ability to improve, to become better, to have higher forms of existence. But it does require individual action. It’s not a dialectical materialism, nor historical materialism, which proceeds all by itself, but there is such a thing as the combination of objective conditions and subjective intervention. The objective conditions do exist. They exist in the form of a New Paradigm promoted by all the countries participating in the Belt and Road Initiative. And if you add to that the subjective factor, which is the courage of the world-historical individual acting on the basis of his or her knowledge, I think there is great reason for hope that we can move humanity into a more safe historical period.

So therefore, I can only appeal to you: Join us! That’s the best thing you can do.

Schlanger: Well, one institution which has earned your trust is the Schiller Institute. Since its founding in 1984, we’ve been ahead of the curve on virtually every single fight. And I think it’s important, as Helga just said, to encourage you not to give up hope, but to find in yourself the strength to get out and wage this battle with us—to talk to people, to bring to them the light of reason, the New Silk Road Spirit.

Helga, thank you very much for joining us, and we’ll be back again next week.

Zepp-LaRouche: Yes, till next week.