The American People Will Prevail

An interview with Helga Zepp-LaRouche by Jason Ross from LaRouchePAC

View full online interview from the Friday, August 5, 2017 Webcast here.

ROSS: So, for the show today, as a brief bit of set up before we get into Helga, this week we saw Donald Trump sign the sanctions bill that had been passed by the House and the Senate — HR3364 — which targets Iran, North Korea, and Russia with sanction. Part of this bill claims as a given that Russia interfered with the US election; part of this bill says that the United States will never recognize Crimea as part of Russia; and it ties the President’s hands in many ways regarding sanctions with Russia and making a large number of diplomatic priorities, diplomatic requirements passed by the House and the Senate rather than through the Executive Branch. Donald Trump signed the bill this week, issuing a signing statement about the parts of the bill that he finds to be unconstitutional. Trump tweeted just yesterday that “Our relationship with Russia is at an all-time and dangerous low. A very dangerous low. You can thank Congress for this,” he says.

Russia responded by calling for the expulsion of a certain number of US diplomats to reach the level of Russian diplomats in the United States; something similar to what President Obama had done with Russian diplomats and Russian diplomatic property, etc. What this means overall, is that it’s really increasing the pressure on US-Russian relations and making it very difficult for Trump to follow through on one of his campaign promises, which was the potential reaching of a détente with Russia. As he had famously said, “It’s not bad to get along with Russia; that’s a good thing.”

Helga, I’d like to bring you on to address your view of this. I know that your husband, Lyndon LaRouche, has said that if this coup against Trump succeeds, this makes the threat of nuclear war very much on the table. Could you tell us your view of the situation?

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Yes. I think this is not just a Senate vote, or a Congress vote; but this is about the President in American history since its founding. Because what this does, is it completely overturns the American Constitution, which gives the power to define foreign policy to the President, and which has the separation of powers. Now, according to the present situation, after the Congress and the Senate voted with this overwhelming majority to impose sanctions, if President Trump would want to undo that, he would have to send a letter to the Congress; and the Congress would have to respond in 30 days to either approve it or oppose it. That is Congress hijacking the power to define policy from the President. I think the American people better wake up to the fact that what is being taken away is the American Constitution. I would think that every American patriot who loves America, and I know the American people are generally very patriotic; they have to understand this moment. Because this can not go and let go. This has so many implications.

My husband, Lyndon LaRouche, said that if this is going to remain, then we are back to the immediate confrontation against Russia — and also China — as we were with the Obama administration and the control of the neo-cons; who have controlled United States policy for two terms of George W Bush, two terms of Obama. It was these neo-cons who were completely upset that a systemic outsider, or somebody not belonging to the system — like Donald Trump — won the election. I remember very well that on the 21st of January, already the British paper {The Spectator} had a headline where they said, it’s just a question if Trump will be gotten out of office by impeachment, by a coup, or by assassination. The motion towards impeachment is fully underway, as you know. The special counsel Robert Mueller, it was just revealed that he has already a grand jury, which is supposed to be secret; but a leak again leaked it to {The Guardian} and other media. So the aim of that clearly is to advocate some story showing ties of Trump or his team to Russia.

Now, let me just be very emphatic. The truth about this matter has to be gotten out. It is historically of the highest significance that the organization of the VIPS — the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity — former high-ranking intelligence officials from various intelligence of the United States, about a week ago addressed a memorandum to President Trump; where they established, based on their indisputable expertise, forensic evidence that there was no Russian hack. Instead, there was insider leaking; someone just downloaded the data from the DNC computers, and then masqueraded the whole affair as if it would have been done by the Russians. To investigate this and to not discuss these findings of the VIPS memorandum, that is the most important way to derail this coup. Fortunately, one of the Congressmen who had the courage to vote against this complete atrocity — Dana Rohrabacher — already commented on the VIPS memorandum. I think we must mobilize the American population to demand that the Congress invite the VIPS representatives to testify, to present their evidence, and indeed that the efforts of such people like Congressman Nunes, who is investigating who did the unmasking, who are the leakers. The efforts by Senator Grassley to do likewise; that must be supported. In general otherwise, I think this Congress has completely discredited itself. The approval rate of the Congress right now, according to the latest polls, is just 10%; I think this is also an historic low.

But I think it now depends on the American people; and you should find all kinds of organizations and institutions representing the people backing up President Trump. Justice has to be done; the leakers have to be investigated; and the truth has to be re-established. This is of the highest strategic importance. This is not only an inner American affair, I think the Russian characterizations that this is an internal fight are not correct. I think this is something much more sinister. The former weapons inspector of Iraq, Scott Ritter, who used to be the weapons inspector during the Iraq War, made a very profound characterization. He said, the fact that you had this complete uni-zonal voice by the US media, the FBI, other US intelligence agencies, and almost unilaterally both houses of Congress; how do you get such complete — in German you would say “gleichzeiten”[ph] — how do you get such a complete uni-zonal performance? Scott Ritter points to the question that this points to a much broader conspiracy going on in the American society. I know that people normally completely get unnerved when you mention the word “conspiracy”, but I don’t think there is another word to characterize what is going on. You have what people nowadays call “Deep State” trying to undo the election of an American President; but you have the British role in all of this. I think that there is an effort by the British Empire, having re-established control over US institutions, to go back to what we had once with the neo-cons in 1992 — the Wolfowitz Doctrine; which was the idea that the United States should never allow another country or another group of countries to bypass the military-political or military power of the United States. Now, that was the coup of the neo-cons after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and they proceeded to try to establish an unipolar world. I think that is exactly expressed in what the Congress did with the sanctions, and by implication it means back to the confrontation with Russia, and naturally the repeated stress in the relationship with China.

So, this is a warpath. This has incredible implications. I just want to mention a couple of them. First of all, Prime Minister Medvedev reacted much more sharply than President Putin. He said this ends the hope for an improvement between the United States and Russia. Then, you had various commentary by Chinese publications which offered to help Russia against the effects of the sanctions; and also said this will just mean a much closer relationship between Russia and China, and together we have a deterrence against the United States. Now that is not what the Chinese want; they have offered the cooperation to the United States to join the Belt and Road Initiative, but that is what it leads to.

Let me just point to two other side effects of this. That is the relationship with Europe, because the sanctions primarily target the Russian natural gas delivery and the idea of building another pipeline — the Northstream II; which Germany needs, because the oil supply from Saudi Arabia, the Middle East is very tricky because of the unstable situation there. The oil reserves in the North Sea are emptying out. Obviously the sanctions would, because the United States insists that they have an extraterritorial command, that it would all firms which produce materials, construction service to any energy project with the Russians. This is completely impossible. It would also target, for example, European investors in the United States if they do business with Russia, they could be expropriated in the United States, or their capital frozen, or things like that. This is causing havoc. The European Union, the German government, already have said that they will consider countermeasures; that this may lead to trade war. Amazingly, a leading think tank which is close to the German government, one spokesman just said this will backfire, because why should countries which are targetted by the sanctions help to implement them? So, he predicts that this will be a boomerang for the Americans; but naturally, a very dangerous one. Also, various German industry associations came out and said this is completely unacceptable.

More fundamentally, it brings up the question of international law. Why would the United States think that their US law can be applied all over the world? This is a violation of international law, and therefore this is an unprecedented crisis. It has, as I said, implications for the American Constitution, for international law, for the relationship with Russia and China; it can break apart the alliance with Europe for the first time. So, I think people really much understand, this must be Undone.

ROSS: Great! Now, I think that really sets the stage very well. If I could ask you to elaborate on a certain point of that. You had brought up the idea that people have a “Deep State” running the United States. Where it isn’t just this single bill, but for a long time there’s been a growing power of certain agencies within the US. Let me ask you a question about a couple of ways that people interpret these things. One is that there is simply a Cold War mentality that hasn’t been overcome; people are living in the past and still see Russia as a threat, comparing it to the Soviet Union in their minds. Another is the idea of the “Deep State”; that the intelligence agencies have developed a sort of lust for power on their own. Take the image of J Edgar Hoover for example; and that these agencies want to run the United States for a certain reason. You brought up something that most commentators don’t, which is the British; or that there’s something outside of US domestic policy that’s shaping this opposition to cooperation with Russia. And you’ve also in your many trips to China and your work on the World Land-Bridge — the Belt and Road Initiative, have a very deep appreciation of another paradigm that’s increasingly taking hold in the world.

Could you say more for our viewers about what you see as the shortcomings with the “Deep State” or Cold War idea? In other words, what is really pushing this opposition to cooperation with Russia? What can we do about it?

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: I think it is a remnant of geopolitics, and geopolitics is the idea that you have a group of nations or one nation which has a fundamental interest against another nation or another group of nations; and if need be, can also fight for this with wars. It was that thinking which led to two World Wars in the 20th Century, and obviously if we don’t overcome this in the age of thermonuclear weapons, what we are talking about is the danger of extinction of the human race if it would come to war. We are much closer to this than most people even wish to recognize. When the Soviet Union disintegrated between ’89 and ’91, there would have been the possibility to have a lasting peace order. Communism had been defeated, and we proposed at that time the Eurasian Land-Bridge; we called it already then the New Silk Road. It was the idea to establish a new paradigm of cooperation in the interest of all participating countries. That would have been a policy very much changing the course of history, but at that time you had Margaret Thatcher, you had Bush, Sr., you had Mitterand; and they decided that to prevent Russia from ever coming up again from reducing the Soviet Union which was a superpower into a Russia which would just be a raw material-producing Third World country. They decided instead of having a peace order, let’s go the old Anglo-American policy of running the world as an empire; and let’s impose a unipolar world. That was the policy of the ’90s, of the early 2000s; this was the idea of regime change, this was the idea of color revolution. This has been the policy of the wars based on lies in Afghanistan, Iraq, the murder of Qaddafi; these policies have destroyed the Middle East. They have caused the refugee crisis; they almost triggered the collapse of the European Union, because there is no Union as it was becoming clear in the course of the refugee crisis.

So, this policy is now about to explode. Alan Greenspan, of all people — the person who again and again warned of irrational exuberance — just came out and said there is another bond bubble blow-out coming, and this will trigger a collapse of the stock market. This empire is collapsing, and that is why I think there is such a desperation to prevent the rise of China; even if China has offered a completely different model, not based on geopolitics but based on a “win-win” cooperation; where all nations cooperating with the New Silk Road Belt and Road Initiative would profit.

I think what’s really at stake here, is do we go back to the British Empire? And people who know American history, know very well that the British Empire never gave up the idea of re-conquering the United States. George III lost his marbles at the time of the American Revolution, and they tried to win America back; first in the War of 1812, then in the Civil War; where the British Empire was allied with the Confederacy. They financed the Confederacy through the East Coast banks. Then after that, they realized it cannot be done militarily, so then the British tried to subvert the American establishment and convince them to run the world as an empire based on the Anglo-American special relationship.

If you look at the whole operation against Trump, which really started long before Trump had won the election; it was British Intelligence which started the dossiers which fabricated intelligence. But it was then helped naturally by the US intelligence agencies, where the structure still came from the Obama period. So, you have really, “Deep State” is too short a formulation, because it does not include the fact that this is a British coup. The collusion is not with Russia; the collusion is with this British Empire. Americans have to understand that their entire revolution is at stake; the Constitution — which is still one of the most fantastic documents in terms of constitutions in the world — this is in total danger. It is already taken over, and the American people must undo that.

ROSS: Strong words. Thank you very much. I think that the mission that we’ve got ahead of us is pretty clear at this point then. We see some opportunities of what can occur if we throw off this world conflict mentality. Just one example would be President Trump’s ending of the Obama program to arm Syrian “rebel” groups, so-called. That act alone is a real change in direction from the past decade and a half of regime change wars that we’ve had. Saying we’re not going to do this anymore. You say, OK, we could have things like if we give up on this push for conflict.

I’d like to end the show here with some ideas about things that people can do, and some reports on what people have been doing. One thing is the VIPS memo that we’ve discussed and that we’ve covered on this website a fair amount. We’ve had a lot of activity around the country; we can show you a few pictures of this in a moment, of the kinds of activity that we’ve been engaged in — rallies on the street here in New York City. You can see one more. This is very important that we get this story out, because it’s absolutely explosive; and it is working, it is getting out. This is something that, as was mentioned, Congressman Rohrabacher has brought up; this is something that’s being brought up by many of the alternative news sources. Oliver Stone brought it up again recently, and it’s something that people around the country are bringing up in places like meetings held by Congressmen. For example, Ted Lew recently had a town hall meeting in his district, and he was asked by a LaRouche PAC activist, “Hey! If the DNC computers were hacked, why has the FBI never investigated them?” Just take this story apart. We’ve had letters to the editor written in decent numbers getting into papers across the country. We’ve had people taking out advertisements in local newspapers, saying you need to know about this story about the Russian hack being an inside job. Read the VIPS Memo; go to the LaRouche PAC website.

We’ve got a supporter holding a yard sale to raise funds for the LaRouche PAC. We’ve got people holding rallies in their hometowns. One example in Connecticut, where a LaRouche supporter said “I’m going to have a rally in front of my town hall.” He pulled it together, we had a good successful rally there covered by the town press and everything. City councils, radio interviews. There’s a lot of activity going on. We were outside Chuck Schumer’s office, for example, in New York; asking people where they thought we ought to chuck Schumer, which would be a wonderful idea. There’s very much to do. This word absolutely must be spread in conjunction with what that alternative can be.

So, I’d like to thank Helga Zepp-LaRouche for being on with us today. I’d like to ask if you do have any further comments to wrap up the show with?

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: I think it’s one of these moments in history where it is individual which counts. I know many people have become depressed because they think there is nothing one can do anyway; but I think we are as close to World War III right now as we are to a completely new paradigm. Just envision a future where America would be friends of other countries again. Most people like Americans; they don’t like the present coup, and they didn’t like the British policies coming from the American government for the last 16 years. But the American people have expressed something very important with the election of President Trump. If the people of America right now would seize the opportunity to back up this President, Trump has started to improve the relationship with Xi Jinping; he has found a good conversation level with Putin at the G-20 in Hamburg. China has offered to help rebuild the infrastructure in the United States, to invite the United States to join the Belt and Road Initiative around the world. Why can’t the United States, Russia, and China, as the three most important nations, work together? If that can be accomplished, can you imagine that we have a secure peace in the world? That we can work together to eliminate poverty not just in the United States, but everywhere? I think these are the questions we should talk about, and I have a tremendous confidence that there is something very good in the American people that will prevail.