EDITORIAL
Macron Speaks for the Empire—Is Trump Listening?
April 25 (EIRNS)—If one were to believe that President Trump accepted French President Emmanuel Macron’s ranting before the joint session of the U.S. Congress today, then one would accept that Trump were prepared to submit the nation to the collapsing old paradigm of the British Empire. Macron, clearly speaking for the Empire (as the French are wont to do) acted as if Trump had agreed with him that the U.S. must stay in Syria as an occupying power, that he would soon return the U.S. to the green fascist Paris agreement on deindustrializing the world to “save the planet,” and that when Trump complains about “fake news,” he means the Russians.
Pardon, Monsieur, but the British coup attempt against the President has not yet succeeded, and, in fact, it is in deep trouble, as MI6 agent Christopher Steele and his American accomplices in the Obama intelligence community and Obama’s State Department are increasingly facing criminal investigations themselves. California Rep. Devin Nunes, leading the House Intelligence Committee investigation into the accusations behind the Russiagate scam, has determined that “there was no official intelligence that was used to start this investigation.” Rather, it was all British lies, peddled into the mass media as “fake news”—as Trump correctly asserted and repeatedly denounced.
Monsieur Macron was, unfortunately, given a hero’s greeting by the corrupt members of the U.S. Congress, who stood and applauded and cheered loudly when Macron said mankind was destroying the planet, that CO2 was destroying any hope for our grandchildren, that “there is no Planet B,” and that “we have to work together to make the planet great again.” Prince Philip couldn’t have said it more diabolically.
But Trump, thus far, has not capitulated to those who are threatening him, demanding that he give up his promises to the American people, who won him the election. Trump blames the press whores of the U.S. and the U.K. for “fake news,” not Russia. He asserts that development is more important than the fake science of climate change. He insists that the U.S. must be friends with Russia. He also announced Tuesday that he is sending his economic team to China, where “we have a very good chance of making a deal” with Xi Jinping, who is “a terrific guy and a friend of mine.”
It is this that the British and their assets in the U.S., as in France, are desperate to prevent. There is the potential for a mass movement coming into being, in Europe and in the U.S., against the imperial war policy driven by British lies. People are reflecting on the Tony Blair fairy tale about WMD in Iraq which launched the last 15 years of blood and destruction across the Middle East, which in turn drove the creation of vast terrorist networks from the targetted populations, and millions of desperate refugees bringing chaos to Europe. A German Parliamentary committee on April 20 declared the British-instigated missile attack on Syria to be “a violation of international law,” even though the pathetic Chancellor Angela Merkel called it “necessary and appropriate.” The world must indeed say “never again” to the British Imperial war party.
The world must also say “yes” to the New Silk Road, as the only alternative to dictates from the lords of the City of London and Wall Street, who will go to any lengths to save their bankrupt system of speculation and fraud. They are quite willing to risk global war to prevent the U.S. from joining China and the 140 other nations which now see a path out of austerity and war through the New Paradigm of the Belt and Road Initiative. India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi is going to China this week, intending to bring India into cooperation with China and Russia in the global development alternative. If President Trump brings the U.S. into full cooperation in the New Silk Road, this would complete the “four powers” alliance long promoted by Lyndon LaRouche as the necessary force needed to end the British Empire.
By uniting East and West, the “divide and conquer” policies of Empire can be dispensed with for good, and the human race can proceed to build a future based on the common aims of Mankind. There is no choice, and this is a precious moment of opportunity which must not be missed.
U.S. POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC
U.S. Ambassador Huntsman: President Trump Sincerely Seeks Détente with Russia
April 25 (EIRNS)—Speaking at a media roundtable in Vladivostok, yesterday, U.S. Ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman emphasized that President Trump “has said repeatedly that he wants a better relationship with Russia. Repeatedly. And he has said quite clearly that he would like to engage personally with President Putin.”
Huntsman went on to say that “every time I’ve met with President Trump or talked with him about this subject, many times now, he’s said the same thing. From day one … I think my President is very sincere when he says that he wants a stable, predictable, manageable U.S.-Russia relationship. And I think President Putin would like the same thing.”
Stressing the importance of building people-to-people relationships, Huntsman reported how much he enjoys traveling around Russia and meeting people from different backgrounds because, “I find every time I meet with Russian people, how much commonality there is between Americans and Russians. We lose perspective sometimes—we lose sight of that when we read only the politics of the U.S.-Russia relationship, which sometimes is strained as it is today. But, we can find solutions to all those issues. There isn’t one issue that is impossible to resolve. We can resolve all of them if there is a will on both sides to work toward that end.”
McCabe Says Obama Justice Department Told Him To Back Off Clinton Probe
April 25 (EIRNS)—In an attempt to either save his own hide, or bring others down with him, former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe told Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz that in August 2016 he had gotten a phone call from a “very pissed off” DOJ official, telling him to back off from the investigation of the Clinton Foundation, implying this wasn’t good for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.
The relevant official was Matthew Axelrod, then Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General, now a partner at the British law firm Linklaters. His name doesn’t appear in the Inspector General’s report, but had been leaked to the Wall Street Journal by FBI agents Lisa Page and Peter Strzok, as authorized by McCabe. Several former DOJ officials told the Washington Times that Axelrod wouldn’t have made such a phone call without the approval of his then-supervisor, Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, an act constituting obstruction of justice.
Boy Scout that he claims to be, McCabe said he resisted Axelrod’s pressure, but his FBI subordinates say otherwise—that they were told to “stand down” by McCabe himself, the Journal reported.
In her blog today, investigative reporter Sara Carter reports that multiple former FBI officials say that aside from internal squabbling over the Clinton Foundation investigation, there was a second “stand down” order from McCabe regarding the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s use of her private email server for government business. This occurred after the New York Times reported on the matter in March 2015, but before the DOJ requested an official investigation that July. McCabe, who was overseas at the time, sent multiple emails to FBI agents in the Washington Field Office, telling them to back off, also obstruction of justice.
Carter notes that if the Office of Inspector General obtains confirmation of this second “stand down” order, McCabe’s legal troubles will multiply. In May, the Inspector General will issue a second report, this time on the FBI’s investigation of the Clinton email case.
In the meantime, FBI and DOJ thieves are falling out at a mad pace. Aside from a looming battle between former FBI Director Comey and his former Deputy McCabe, Strzok and Page are still FBI employees, and as such are available to Horowitz and his team for questioning. They may already be speaking to investigators. Strzok’s boss, Bill Priestap, is now also a cooperating witness, and said to be a “goldmine of information,” according to an article for RealClearPolitics.
Nunes: No Intelligence Was Used To Justify the Russiagate Investigation
April 25 (EIRNS)—Rep. Devin Nunes, chair of the House Intelligence Committee, reported on April 22 that there was no intelligence to justify the opening of the Russiagate probe against Donald Trump in the first place.
Speaking on Fox Business Network, Nunes said: “We now know that there was no official intelligence that was used to start this investigation. We know that Sidney Blumenthal and others were pushing information into the State Department. So we’re trying to piece all that together and that’s why we continue to look at the State Department.”
Nunes cited the “Five Eyes” agreement among the intelligence Anglo-America agencies—Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and U.S.—as a way of knowing no intelligence was used. “We are not supposed to spy on each other’s citizens, and it’s worked well,” Nunes said. “And it continues to work well. And we know it’s working well because there was no intelligence that passed through the Five Eyes channels to our government. And that’s why we had to see that original communication.”
Fox reports that Nunes “is now investigating the State Department due to signs of major irregularities, in an effort to figure out how information about former Trump campaign advisor George Papadopoulos—who reportedly met with a foreign policy expert and Cambridge professor with connections to the CIA and Britain’s MI6 in London in 2016—was obtained by the FBI.”
France’s Macron Spreads Imperialist Nonsense, as Congressional Idiots Roar Approval
April 25 (EIRNS)—President Emmanuel Macron addressed a Joint Session of the Congress today, both attacking President Trump on several issues and lying that he had won Trump over to others. Perhaps more revolting than Macron’s open call for recolonizing the Middle East, shutting down human use of CO2 to “save” the planet, and bombing Syria based on British lies, is the fact that the members of Congress, from both parties, cheered and shouted support for this nonsense.
Macron essentially accused Trump of fostering fear and withdrawal from the world. “Americans and Europeans are living in a time of anger and fear under global threats,” he said. “You can play with fear and anger for a time. Anger only freezes and weakens us…. We can choose isolationism, withdrawal and nationalism … but closing the door to the world will not stop the evolution of the world.”
He praised the bombing of Syria, claiming incredibly that it “restored the credibility of the international system.”
He attacked “fake news” for “corroding our democracy,” using the line used by those who accuse Russia of peddling “fake news,” although, of course, Trump is attacking the U.S. and European mass media, not Russia, when he attacks “fake news.”
Sounding like something out of Alice in Wonderland, Macron demanded that the world must defend “sovereignty” in the Middle East, and then explained that the threat comes from Iran, not the British, French and U.S., whose forces should stay in the region, until “we” get the government “we” want. Iran, he insisted, on the other hand, must be kept out of Yemen, Lebanon, Iraq, and Syria, neglecting to mention that Iran is friends of the sovereign states of Yemen, Lebanon, Iraq, and Syria, unlike the invading imperialist powers of the West.
But the most enthusiasm and applause came when Macron whined that human use of CO2 is destroying the planet and destroying the lives of our grandchildren. He even claimed that the U.S. would admit its foolish ways and come crawling back to the Paris Climate Agreement—since there is no alternative, “no Planet B,” as he quipped. He insulted his host Trump, by turning the President’s campaign slogan on its head, saying: “Let us work together in order to make our planet great again” meaning to shut down human progress.
STRATEGIC WAR DANGER
General Rudskoy Affirms There Were No Chemical Arms at Syrian Sites Bombed by West
April 25 (EIRNS)—Gen. Sergei Rudskoy, chief of the Russian General Staff’s Main Operations Directorate, is quoted by TASS and Sputnik asserting that, based on samples taken from the sites, there were no chemical weapons at either the Barzeh scientific research center and the Han Shinsar facility in Syria struck by the U.S., U.K., French bombing attacks on April 14.
According to Sputnik, Rudskoy announced that the delegation from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons that visited Douma on April 21 confirmed the absence of chemical weapons at Barzeh, although the OPCW itself has not yet made any official statement. According to its website, the OPCW delegation visited Douma for a second time today to collect samples from a different location, and will take them back to The Netherlands, from where they will be split up and sent to OPCW-designated labs for analysis.
The Russian mission to the OPCW has also informed the OPCW Technical Secretariat that it will hold a briefing for member states (“states’ parties”) at The Hague April 26, at which Syrian eyewitnesses will be present to report on the alleged Douma incident. The OPCW had recommended that such a briefing take place once the Fact-Finding Mission (FFM) has completed its work. Russia said it has no intention of interfering with the FFM’s work, but will proceed with the scheduled briefing.
In his remarks, General Rudskoy emphasized that had there been chemical weapons present at the targetted sites, the bombings by Western nations would have killed tens of thousands of people from the toxic agents that would have been released. This didn’t occur; in fact, he said, people who worked at the facilities, as well as bystanders, walked around the area without protective gear and no one was poisoned. He also debunked U.S. claims that all its missiles had hit their targets, saying that only 22 out of 105 missiles actually did, and that 46 were taken out by Syrian air defense.
Next U.S. Pacific Command Chief Wants To Contain China
April 25 (EIRNS)—Adm. Philip Davidson, President Donald Trump’s nominee to replace Adm. Harry Harris as commander of U.S. Pacific Command, has apparently taken up as his mission the containment of China. This was most explicit in his answers to prepared questions submitted prior to the April 17 hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee. During his opening statement, Davidson put China into the context of the National Defense Strategy (NDS), which labels both Russia and China as “revisionist powers” and “strategic competitors” of the United States. “China continues to improve both the size and the capability of its armed forces, and hopes to supplant the United States as the security partner of choice, not just in the Indo-Pacific region, but across the globe,” he said. Beyond that, China came up again, during the hearing over its presence in the South China Sea and its development of hypersonic weapons systems.
In his answers to advance questions, Davidson called for enlarging PACOM’s force structure with more higher-end forces, to include more stealth aircraft, more high precision munitions, more submarines, as well as building up alliances “to project combat power from host nation bases when necessary.” He complained that it is China that has already “expanded the competitive space” with intermediate range ballistic missiles and counterspace capabilities and “the United States must strive to meet the challenge.” In other words, China is ahead of the U.S. in certain crucial areas, and the U.S. must catch up.
Furthermore, “The strategic and operational environment outlined in the NDS clearly identifies the importance of developing and fielding a force posture that is capable of countering Chinese malign influencein the region,” Davidson went on [emphasis added]. He claimed that with its activities in the South China Sea and through the Belt and Road Initiative, “the Chinese are clearly executing deliberate and thoughtful force posture initiatives.” China, he went on, “claims that these reclaimed features [artificial islands] and the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) will not be used for military means, but their words do not match their actions. Our defense strategy provides the necessary guidance that will drive our actions.”
Davidson claims that in the National Defense Strategy, the U.S. advocates for a free and open Indo-Pacific, which includes respect for international law, freedom of navigation and so forth. “China can choose to support these principles and the economic prosperity these principles enable, or reject them,” he said. “While the United States remains committed to cooperating with China on our shared national interests—North Korea, counterpiracy, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, etc.—it is increasingly clear that China wants to shape a world aligned with its own authoritarian model and inconsistent with these principles.” Therefore, “We must be willing to cooperate with China where we can, while consistently and unapologetically confronting China when it engages in behavior that undermines the international order or harms U.S. interests in the region.”
As far as the Belt and Road Initiative goes, Davidson is clearly confusing its aims with City of London/Wall Street methods of economic looting. He said he was supportive of any efforts that help developing countries, but “the predatory nature of many of the loans and initiatives associated with the Belt and Road Initiative lead me to believe that Beijing is using the BRI as a mechanism to coerce states into greater access and influence for China. The nations that accept China’s offer of low interest loans, grants and other financial incentives risk Beijing later manipulating economic deals into future security arrangements,” and so on.
Furthermore, in Davidson’s view, the BRI is a military policy which has allowed the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to expand its reach from the South China Sea to the Gulf of Aden. “Moreover,” and this is obviously the real crime, “Beijing could leverage BRI projects to pressure nations to deny U.S. forces basing, transit or operational and logistical support, thereby making it more challenging for the United States to preserve international order and norms.”
The Senate Armed Services Committee reported Davidson’s nomination to the full Senate on April 24.
U.S., U.K., France Said To Be Seeking a Way To Bypass Russian Veto in UN
April 25 (EIRNS)—The Guardian, without citing any sources, reported on April 24 that “Western nations,” presumably meaning UN Security Council permanent members U.S., U.K. and France, are seeking to bypass the veto by Russia—also a permanent member— at the UN Security Council by taking the Syria chemical weapons issue directly to the UN General Assembly.
The Guardian reports that the impasse at the UNSC was raised at an annual weekend closed-door retreat attended by Security Council ambassadors in Sweden, and is now likely to be discussed further at a series of meetings this week. Called “uniting for peace,” this rarely used route would enable nine members of the fifteen in the Security Council to bypass a Russian veto and refer the matter to a full vote at the General Assembly.
It would then require a two-thirds majority by the General Assembly for an attribution mechanism to be agreed. What the Guardian doesn’t say is that every draft resolution proposed by the “Western nations” on Syria, including those dealing with the alleged use of chemical weapons by the Syrian government, has been based on lies, and that is why the Russians keep vetoing them.
EU Withholding Reconstruction Funds from Syria
April 25 (EIRNS)—At a two-day donors conference which was concluded in Brussels, today, leading EU officials declared that while humanitarian aid would be granted to Syria, funds for the reconstruction would flow only if a clear roadmap for a transition from the present government under Bashar al Assad to a “democratic process” existed. It is up to Russia and Iran to get this process going by putting pressure on Assad, EU leaders argued.
COLLAPSING WESTERN FINANCIAL SYSTEM
U.S. Treasury Secretary Mnuchin To Lead Delegation to China for Trade Talks
April 25 (EIRNS)—Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin will lead a delegation of four to China “in the next few days,” according to President Donald Trump. May 3-4 has been mentioned as possible date for the visit.
Mnuchin will be accompanied by Lawrence Kudlow, head of the National Economic Council; U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer; and Peter Navarro, director of the White House Trade Council, according to a Wall Street Journal account.
In public remarks yesterday, President Trump said that he thought “we have a very good chance of making a deal” with China. He stated that President Xi Jinping, who “is a terrific guy and a friend of mine” made a speech four days ago that he intends to “open up,” but right now it’s not opened up. The Mnuchin delegation is traveling “at their request” and “that’ll be good … I believe the trade will work out … hopefully it’ll be good for everybody concerned,” Trump said.
The Journal wrote that the trip is evidence of a “thaw” in U.S.-China relations. The administration has also apparently put on hold issuing a list of $100 billion in additional Chinese goods that might be subject to tariffs.
In responding to a question about the upcoming U.S. visit, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang remarked today that it’s not unusual for the world’s two largest economies to have economic disputes, which, he said, can be solved “via bilateral consultations or within a commonly recognized multilateral framework. However, they can never be solved by unilateral means.”
THE NEW GLOBAL ECONOMIC ORDER
Iran Discussing Railway Electrification Projects with Russia
April25 (EIRNS)—Iran has proposed railway electrification projects worth €3 billion to Russia, Russian Railways vice-president Alexander Misharin told Sputnik. The projects include electrifying 3,000 km of lines in Iran which is on an ambitious railway expansion and modernization drive.
“Three-thousand kilometers, a big project…. This is a big project, we need to fold the financing scheme; this is €2-3 billion,” Misharin said. “We did sign a contract for the electrification of the Garmsar-Ince Burun line, and it includes, among other things, access to other lines. Now we are considering what these will be. These will be the sections that are part of the North-South Corridor, maybe this will be Tehran-Tabriz. This is the next stage of our discussion. Today the Iranian side proposed to expand our cooperation, we are ready to discuss it.”
Last August, a Russian bank agreed to provide €1 billion to electrify the 500 km Garmsar-Ince Burun line in northeast Iran. The railway stretches to Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan, linking Central Asia to the Persian Gulf and beyond, the construction of tunnels and power supply units is included. The project will start before the end of this year. Next might be the project to electrify the 600 km railway route between Tehran and the northwestern city of Tabriz. In July 2017, Russia’s largest manufacturer of locomotives and rail equipment, CJSC Transmashholding, signed a €2.5 billion deal with IDRO Group in Tehran for joint production of rolling stock in Iran.
