ZEPP-LAROUCHE WEBCAST

Victory Over the Desperate
British Empire Is Now Within Reach!

This is the edited transcript of the Schiller Institute’s September 20, 2018 New Paradigm interview with Helga Zepp-LaRouche 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 webcast, featuring our founder, Helga Zepp-LaRouche.

There have been a few bombshells in the last couple of days that are shaping a new potential for the strategic situation, especially a potential for defeating the coup in the United States, with President Trump’s order for document declassification. Helga, I think it’s important that we start with that, because it does conform to what we’ve been calling for—the declassification of the whole story of who’s behind this coup attempt and why. Why don’t you catch us up with that?

Helga Zepp-LaRouche: Yes. I think this is the most important strategic development, because as we have said many times, while countries in the world are moving toward a completely new set of international relations, expressed in the New Silk Road and in win-win cooperation, it is also clear that it all depends on the United States. Depending on how the internal situation in the United States develops, I think it’s a question of war and peace.

Two weeks ago, I mentioned Willy Wimmer’s statement—which I agree with—that the only thing standing between all of us and World War III is the person of Donald Trump. That is not a full endorsement of Trump, it’s just the reality that the people who have been engaged in a coup attempt against him, together with the British government and British intelligence, these are the war-mongers and these are the people who are pushing for complete confrontation with Russia and China.

Trump Orders Documents Declassified

In this strategic context, it is super-important now, less than seven weeks before the midterm elections, that President Trump did, indeed, order the declassification of a lot of documents pertaining to the FISA Court warrants, all of which were based on the circulation of the fraudulent Steele dossier, a real intelligence operation; and also a lot of the emails, and interviews with 70 individuals involved in this affair.

While this is not yet public, it will be public, and basically we have to wait until they process all of this information and it gets out. It is very clear, from the reaction of the culprits, that, really, Trump has hit a raw nerve. You have a completely hysterical reaction from the leaders of the Democratic Party—Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Adam Schiff, Mark Warner, others—who are saying that “under no circumstances must this information be declassified. This is risking the lives of sources” and whatnot. Pelosi and all the former heads of intelligence are coming out to scream and yell.

They all admit that President Trump does have the authority to do this. Then all these crimes will come out in the open, and the role of British intelligence will be absolutely crystal clear: there was no Russia collusion, but there was, indeed, criminal collusion between the Democratic Party apparatus, the heads of intelligence from the Obama Administration, and a foreign power, namely, Great Britain.

I think Trump is absolutely correct to say that this document declassification is going to be one of the proudest accomplishments of his Presidency, because this whole apparatus was a cancer which has been damaging the United States for a very long time.

So this is big. And I find it really scandalous that something which very well could be the biggest scandal in the history of the United States, is not being reported widely by the international media. When they report it, it’s twisted and has a spin, and normal people who don’t follow this in depth have no way of understanding the significance of this. I know that this is not so in the United States, but for example, the German media, I was really looking, and they hardly have anything about it at all—which tells you something, that it’s not just fake news that they report, it’s especially the suppression of really big stories, which is how they try to manipulate the population. So President Trump’s decision to declassify the documents is big.

Schlanger: Helga, even in the United States, after the first day, the coverage fell off dramatically, relative to the importance of this. The Hill ran an interview with Trump, in which he commented on the greatest scandal, but I think it’s also worth noting that the Pelosi, Schumer, Warner, and Schiff letter was essentially an appeal to the intelligence community, the Justice Department and the FBI, to defy Trump’s order, creating a potential constitutional crisis.

Now, the other part of this, is that LaRouche PAC has for a long time demanded declassifying the other part—the British documents, the emails, the communications between the British and people like Brennan and Clapper and others. So I think this is the other shoe that still has to drop.

Papadopoulos Spills the Beans

Zepp-LaRouche: Yes. But I think the first shoe is already dropping, or has already dropped, and I find it quite interesting that, of all people, George Papadopoulos—supposedly the one who triggered this whole investigation while drunk in a London bar, by mentioning that there was Russian hacking of the Democratic computers—two days ago, he gave a lengthy interview on Fox TV which I would advise all of you, our viewers and listeners, to make the effort and listen to it, because it’s really revealing.

In that interview he said he was set up, that he was lured into this by a combination of Australian, British, Turkish and American intelligence; that he was entrapped in this, and he’s now spilling the beans. He says it is the British, it’s the Australians, which, by the way, is more or less the same thing because of the Five Eyes connection among those Commonwealth countries. Papadopoulos is saying this was all a setup, and it was the British.

This is really important and people should really listen to it, because this was, as far as I know, one of the so-called pretexts for the whole scandal to erupt, and now he is turning around saying he was set up, and was lured into this.

If this continues to happen, I think we are going to see more things. All the congressmen who have been looking into all of this have said that if the American people were able to know the extent of this crime, they would get really upset. I think this could be the big catharsis in American history.

Schlanger: This is so crucial, given the strategic developments that are occurring, that were the President freed from this yoke around his neck, this constant attack on him, there’d be potential for the United States to engage in collaboration, as you’ve been calling for, with the Chinese, the Russians, the Indians, the Japanese, for moving to a completely new economic system. We see this with the continuation of the “Singapore model” in the meetings this week between President Moon Jae-in of South Korea and North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un. This is a big step forward, isn’t it?

Moon and Kim Meet

Zepp-LaRouche: Oh yes. And it also shows, again, how idiotic those people were, who said that this was a big bluff and nothing would come of it. Because President Moon is now in Pyongyang for three days. As Moon and Kim travelled by open car through Pyongyang, they were greeted by thousands of people along their route. Many had unification flags.

Moon and Kim said they want to have complete agreement for a peace treaty by the end of the year, and big economic projects are on the horizon, which can be implemented the moment the sanctions stop. And I think it’s also extremely important that this is part of the New Silk Road. In the province of Liaoning, the southernmost province in Manchuria, adjacent to North Korea, the government announced that it wants to integrate into its economic planning the extension of high-speed trains into North Korea all the way to Busan in the southern tip of South Korea, and in that way to fully integrate the Korean Peninsula into the Belt and Road Initiative.

That is exactly why there is such a strong hope that the promise—also made by President Trump, that he wants North Korea to become a prosperous country—is on a very good track.

So I think this is really important. The Schiller Institute, and I personally, have lived through all the trials of German unification, and therefore, I can vividly imagine what is going on in the hearts and minds of Koreans.

Families are coming together for the first time in many years, and people are just very happy. I remember that in 1989, Germans, for a certain period, were absolutely jubilant, and, indeed, were a better people. Unfortunately, as we have said many times, that historical chance was missed, because of the geostrategic efforts to dismantle the former Comecon economy, so the potential was not fully developed. You have many beautiful cities in East Germany now that they are fully restored, but you have an aging population, because people left Germany because economic development did not really take place in the way it could have, had the Eurasian Land-Bridge proposal we made at the time been fulfilled.

The situation is completely different with North and South Korea, because you have the Belt and Road Initiative, and therefore, I think this is really one of the great developments of our time.

Putin and Erdogan Outflank in Idlib

Schlanger: That is a huge difference, because it’s something that North Korea can be plugged into very quickly. The Chinese want to do it. The South Koreans want to do it. And it brings the whole Korean Peninsula that much closer to Europe.

The other situation that’s evolving—and it’s quite complicated—is that around Idlib province in Syria. On our Sept. 6 webcast we talked about Nikki Haley and John Bolton threatening Russia and Syria over an alleged, planned use by the Syrian Arab Army of chemical weapons, the civilian slaughter that was allegedly about to take place. It does appear that as a result of the summit between Presidents Putin and Erdogan that fake scenario has been outflanked. What’s the latest that you have on the situation in Syria and in Idlib province?

Zepp-LaRouche: In the face of this absolutely pre-programmed provocation, the Russian government provided the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the U.S. State Department, and other governments with information and proof that the White Helmets had kidnapped children in order to have them appear as “victims” for the so-called chemical attack by Assad, thus constituting a completely false-flag operation. All the warmongers in the West, including U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton, German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen, and all kinds of similarly-minded people, were already saying, “If there is a chemical attack by Assad, we will immediately have a military strike, which will be much more severe than the previous two.” It definitely was a very good flank to interrupt the escalation of this operation, which could have gone completely out of control.

Now, in parenthesis, people should just reflect: What motive could Assad possibly have, when he has almost liberated, with the help of Russia, the entire territory of Syria, except for this little province of Idlib, to risk using chemical weapons? The Syrian government’s chemical weapons were all destroyed, by the way, with international supervision, several years ago. Assad has no chemical weapons. Even if he still had some, why would he use them, given this scenario and this orchestration? It just doesn’t make sense; it’s a complete fabrication.

But it was a very serious development. President Putin and President Erdogan decided to outflank all this that by declaring a demilitarized zone of about 15-20 square kilometers that Russia and Turkey will enforce. It’s not entirely clear how they’re going to do it, because there are between 40-60,000 terrorists of various kinds—Al-Qaeda, ISIS, Al-Nusra, and their follower organizations in Idlib—and about 3 million civilians living in the province, so it obviously is a tedious and dangerous effort. But if the Turkish and Russian military forces work together, and with Russia having control of the airspace over this province, I think it can be done. I don’t know exactly what the modalities are going to be, but I think this tactic has definitely derailed an otherwise extremely dangerous escalation. We just have to see how the situation evolves.

Trade War, or New Bretton Woods?

Schlanger: Another area where there’s escalation, is the imposition of new tariffs between the United States and China. It appears to be evolving into a real, full-fledged trade war. There’s so much in the media attacking China, blaming China. Now there are reports that China’s economy is “staggered” by this. What’s the picture that you have on this situation, Helga?

Zepp-LaRouche: I think it’s really unfortunate, because, you know, President Trump was on such a good track with President Xi Jinping. They had a very good state visit at Mar-a-Lago in April a year ago; then you had the “State visit-plus” of Trump and Melania in Beijing at the end of last year—this was all going in an absolutely good direction. But you have these people in the Trump Administration who are really China haters, like Peter Navarro, and also Larry Kudlow. Kudlow said that the initial implementation of these sanctions has “smashed” the Chinese economy already, which I think is absolutely far from being true. And Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said that the Chinese have “run out of bullets” already, which is really stupid.

Meanwhile, Trump announced a new round of tariffs of 10% on $200 billion worth of mostly consumer item imports from China, to go into effect Sept. 24, but increasing to 25% by the beginning of next year, should there be no deal by then. China does not import from the United States and the United States imports from China, so China cannot totally answer with a similar amount in terms of tariffs. But to think that China, if this thing escalates, has no other means to respond, is just completely foolish. After all, they have $1.3 trillion worth of U.S. securities as foreign exchange reserves; they could lower the value of their currency, for example, and undo the effect of all of these sanctions.

If you get into this kind of dynamic, however, it is really bad. It has absolutely nothing to do with the American System of economics. I think Trump means well, that he wants to bring industries back to the United States, but as we have said many times, in order to pull the world out of danger of a new financial crash much worse than that of 2008, we need a New Bretton Woods system; and this can only be done if the four most important powers come together—maybe more than four, but this is the core group which is absolutely necessary—namely the United States, Russia, China, and India, and possibly such countries as Japan. You cannot make enemies with the very countries you need for a New Bretton Woods system! I think trade war with China is really the wrong way to go.

I think the future lies with the New Paradigm: the participation of the United States in the New Silk Road, allowing American companies to invest in all the countries of the Belt and Road Initiative; allowing Chinese investments inside the United States, for example, in the renewal of infrastructure, and in the technological increase of productivity, such as joint cooperation for fusion power, joint space exploration—activities that dramatically increase the productivity of the economy, therefore making the cake bigger, not redistributing pieces of an ever-shrinking cake.

This is very unfortunate, and we will just increase our campaign to try to get a different debate going, namely one on a New Bretton Woods system, and joint ventures in third countries, because that discussion would bring a much, much better result. In the context of the danger of a financial crash, trade war is really not the way to go.

Will the EU Collapse?

Schlanger: We’re seeing quite a bit of activity in Europe right now. I’ll pick out just three cases: The situation in Germany continues to be unstable. The coalition government is again in trouble. But then, we see useful and positive initiatives coming out of Italy and Austria. What’s going to happen here? The German situation is especially troubling, because Germany could play such an important role, and yet you see such crazy things as, finally, someone coming out against Bundestag President Wolfgang Schäuble’s “black zero” austerity policy, but for the wrong reason—so there can be a German military buildup! How do we deal with this situation in Europe, Helga?

Zepp-LaRouche: I think former Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel basically said it: It just needs one more blow and the whole European Union could fall apart. I think that is absolutely true.

The effort to stick to geopolitics is not working. German diplomat Wolfgang Ischinger’s statement to get rid of the “black zero,” in order to have a military buildup, is just one example. Another example is that the EU has just decided that it wants to counter the Belt and Road Initiative, the New Silk Road.

Federica Mogherini, the so-called foreign minister of the EU, claims she has just travelled through 20 countries and they all would like European connectivity much better than working with China—which I really doubt! I don’t know which countries she visited, maybe some countries on the Moon, or some asteroid, I don’t know. But this just does not make any sense. I know what important governments are thinking, and they all tend to agree, except those under complete geopolitical control of the EU for one reason or another. They all agree that they have a much better opportunity when dealing with China, because of China’s win-win cooperation approach.

Sticking to geopolitics is really not good. But this is not the only dynamic at work in Europe, because, as you mentioned, Italy, in spite of being blasted by the EU, by the European Central Bank, by ECB President Mario Draghi, by EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, by all kinds of so-called “Europeans,” is doing the right thing! Italian Undersecretary of State for Economic Development Michele Geraci was just at the G-20 Commerce Ministers meeting in Argentina, where he proposed reforming the World Trade Organization to make it fairer to every participating nation. Finance Minister Giovanni Tria was just in China working out a memorandum of understanding for joint cooperation, not only involving China and Italy in joint projects in the development of Africa—which is absolutely the way to go—but also intensifying cooperation between Alitalia and Chinese airline companies. So this is very good.

In Austria, Chancellor Sebastian Kurz has called for a forum to discuss the migrant crisis. He wanted to have an EU-African Union summit before the end of the year, when Austria must give up its presidency of the EU, but the EU refused! They don’t want to discuss an overall orientation to the migrant crisis, but instead insist on just discussing the particulars of it. Just as have all the North African countries—Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco—the EU has refused to situate refugee camps on its soil for very good reasons.

So the EU policy is not functioning, and therefore, what Chancellor Kurz wants to do is much better. Since the EU refused to entertain a summit on the issue, Kurz will now hold an EU Africa forum, not for EU bureaucrats, but instead he is inviting leading European businessmen and firms to discuss industrial investment in Africa. That is much, much, much better.

So you have no unity in the European Union, as you mentioned. The German government is again in a major coalition crisis, because the coalition partners made this crazy deal to kick out Hans-Georg Maassen, the head of the internal agency for the protection of the Constitution (BfV)—it’s roughly the equivalent of the FBI. He got caught in a bunch of stupid statements and lies, and so he was kicked out of that position, but they kicked him upstairs to make him Deputy Minister of the Interior under Horst Seehofer, which means he gets a lot more money. And people are really upset. Now, it’s clear the SPD was involved in making this deal, so therefore they are now all protesting this and saying this is outrageous—it’s just a phony theater, because everybody knows SPD head Andrea Nahles must have been involved in making this deal.

I don’t know what will come of this coalition, but they’re all suffering from an inability to correct the mistakes of their policy. That you have such a strong populist—or right-wing, or worse than right-wing—movement now in Germany in the form of the Alternative für Deutschland, is the result of wrong economic policies. It’s not just that many people oppose the migrants; it’s because they feel economically sidelined and have suffered only disadvantages from the policy of the “black zero,” and globalization.

The German government is clearly unable to reflect on why all of this is happening. I don’t think this is the end of it: I think all of this means that European nations are drifting further apart. There is a way out, however, and that is cooperation with China in the development of Africa.

We will continue to propose it and produce reports proposing very concretely how it can be done.

Make History with the Schiller Institute!

Schlanger: Helga, we’re basically out of time. I want to take a moment, however, to congratulate you on the extraordinary conference you presided over in New York City last week [see Executive Intelligence Review, Sept. 21, 2018 for conference texts], which people can see in the videos on the Schiller Institute website, Panel I and Panel II, where the process, the motion toward pulling together a Four Power agreement for a New Bretton Woods, was put forward very effectively by people from all over the world.

I encourage our viewers to go to our website, look at these videos, and join. Become a member of the Schiller Institute so we can bring the West out of this insane British policy of geopolitics and into this New Paradigm.

Helga, is there anything you want to add to that?

Zepp-LaRouche: I ask you, our viewers, to sign our Petition for a New Bretton Woods. We will publish this now: We have many VIP signatures, and also an increasing number of just normal citizens, and we will circulate this petition at the UN General Assembly this month to try to influence the discussion for a new financial system, a new credit system—rather, a New Bretton Woods system. So, sign the petition, and get it around as widely as possible, and share the view of this webcast, to build up the viewership. As you may have noticed, we are discussing here things which are absolutely not in the mainstream media, but are nevertheless extremely important for people to know.

Schlanger: OK. People can work on building up the audience for next week. Helga, we’ll see you again next week.

Zepp-LaRouche: I hope so!