EDITORIAL
‘Damn British Lies’ Stand Exposed More and More
April 17 (EIRNS)—The British hand behind the Big Lie which charged the Syrian government with gassing its own people April 7, now stands more exposed each day, before the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has even started its work on the scene (expected by April 18.) This exposure creates conditions favorable to overturning, once and for all, the London-centered geopolitical forces behind such despicable deeds, including their machinations to entrap the U.S. Presidency to participate in the lies and military assaults.
First reports today are that the new April 16 LaRouchePAC statement, “Clearing the Fog of War: Lies, Damn Lies, Damn British Lies,” is hitting home, as it goes out on social media, and on the streets, e.g., near the United Nations.
Over the last 24 hours, new accounts are out from multiple firsthand sources in Douma, posted in video and print, which all report, that they saw no evidence of use of poison gas in the April 7 imputed chemical weapons episode. The disparate accounts conform to show a scenario in which, in the midst of a shelling attack, people sheltering in an underground chamber were stricken by dust, smoke, and debris. Some died right there; others were able to flee. Some got to the hospital, where medics began treatment for respiratory and other forms of distress. Suddenly, cameramen arrived, and a shout of “gas attack” went up. Certain people started hosing children and others, all of which was caught on video. The film team then departed, and the medics continued to treat people. Accounts have come from Douma from Pearson Sharp (One America News, April 16,) from CGTN, and others.
For example, Robert Fisk, writing in Britain’s daily Independent(April 16), interviewed Dr. Assim Rahaibani, a senior Syrian physician, who spoke of the night in question. “There was a lot of shelling [by government forces] and aircraft were always over Douma at night—but on this night, there was wind, and huge dust clouds began to come into the basements and cellars where people lived. People began to arrive here suffering from hypoxia, oxygen loss. Then someone at the door, a ‘White Helmet,’ shouted, ‘Gas!’ and a panic began. People began throwing water over each other. Yes the video was filmed here; it is genuine, but what you see are people suffering from hypoxia—not gas poisoning.”
At The Hague yesterday, information on all this, including the White Helmets’ role and history, was distributed at the OPCW meeting to all the participants, by Russian Ambassador Alexander Shulgin. He said afterward, “We handed out materials demonstrating that what happened in Douma on April was well orchestrated. The Russian Defense Ministry made a very important statement. Facts were presented to show how the White Helmets, this pseudo-humanitarian, non-government organization, works off the money they receive from Western sponsors, first of all, from the United States and Great Britain, to stage various sorts of provocations.” For their part, the British envoy, and the U.S. Ambassador to the OPCW Kenneth Ward, charged up their new Big Lie, that the Russians may be tampering with the evidence onsite in Douma.
However, the bigger the lies, the more exposed. Not only the Russian, but Chinese sources are naming names. China English-language TV broadcaster CGTN put out a special exposing the White Helmets, by their prominent host, Yang Rui. In his “Rui Thinking” program today, he states that the White Helmets are known to practice medical aid by day, and by night, carry out terrorist attacks. He says that to believe what the White Helmets say, puts you in the land of “post-truth.”
Helga Zepp-LaRouche today observed that we are in a situation where the lies can completely backfire. If the role of Britain is exposed—and the Russians and Chinese are now focussing on it, then it all can backfire. She drew out the point, “Spooks like to operate in the dark. But the limelight is now on the spooks!”
Instead of the lies, attacks and destruction, what is required among nations—acting in the realm of light and truth, is for actions which serve the mutual benefit of all. This potential is being furthered this week between China and Japan, as Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi has important meetings in Tokyo. Today in Florida, President Donald Trump hosts Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. It is high time for Trump to meet with President Vladimir Putin.
Helga Zepp-LaRouche’s call for this was carried April 13 by Russian Satellite News Agency, out of Moscow, and is also picked up in China. Quoting Zepp-LaRouche from an earlier interview, the Agency dispatch reports, “ ‘As Trump said on Twitter, the deterioration of U.S.-Russian relations is largely the result of actions within the U.S. against him. Special investigations by Mueller and various committees of the country over the past year, have found no findings of “Russia traces.” ’ LaRouche concluded, ‘The sooner Trump meets with Putin, the more opportunity they have to stop the provocation.’ ”
STRATEGIC WAR DANGER
U.S. Charges Russia Tampered with Alleged Syria Chemical Attack Site
April 17 (EIRNS)—Yesterday’s meeting of the executive council of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons was the scene of accusations and countercharges, as the U.S. and the U.K. accused Russia of blocking access to the site in Douma, Syria of the April 7 alleged chemical weapons attack. Even worse, the U.S. Ambassador to the OPCW Kenneth Ward claimed that the Russians may have tampered with the site of the alleged April 7 chemical attack “with the intent of thwarting the efforts of the OPCW fact-finding mission to conduct an effective investigation,” Ward said, the Wall Street Journal reported. The same powers that were accusing Russia of blocking OPCW access to the site of an alleged chemical attack were more than happy, in late 2017 to accept the report of a joint UN-OPCW investigation blaming the Syrian government for the Khan Sheikhoun attack, though the investigators declined to visit the attack site!
Ambassador Alexander Shulgin, Russia’s representative to the OPCW, told the council that the U.S. is worried that the inspectors might not find any evidence of an attack, and thus are worried about what happens next. “The U.S. ambassador said that Russian experts had visited the site of the presumable chemical attack and cleaned up something there to help the Syrians cover up the tracks,” Shulgin said. “We consider that as a clumsy attempt to cushion the blow in case it turns out that they have lied about what had actually happened.
“Our American partners look to be nervous, in frenzied effort to find anything that could justify their steps in case their allegations about the use of chemical weapons in Syria prove to be false,” Shulgin stressed. “They are probably afraid that experts on the ground may refute their false theory that was used as a pretext for a strike on helpless Syria.”
Former Royal Navy Chief: Douma Attack Story Doesn’t Ring True
April 17 (EIRNS)—In a BBC interview yesterday, Lord West of Spithead, the former First Sea Lord, retired Royal Navy admiral and former Chief of Defense Intelligence, went off-script to question the official account of the alleged April 7 chemical attack in Douma, Syria. “President Assad is in the process of winning this civil war and he was about to take over and occupy Douma … and just before he goes in and takes it over, he decides to have a chemical attack. It just doesn’t ring true,” West said. “Surely he would know that there’s likely to be a response from the allies. What benefit is there for his military? Most of the rebel fighters … had withdrawn. What benefit is there militarily in doing what he did? I find that extraordinary.”
West went on to point out that the groups making the reports about the attack, the “disparate groups” fighting Syrian President Bashar al Assad and the doctors reporting to the World Health Organization, who are also sympathetic to those groups, are not reliable sources of information because they’re not neutral. “I’m just a little bit concerned because as we now move to the next phase in this war, if I were advising some of the Islamist groups … I would say we’ve got to wait until there’s another attack by Assad’s forces … and we must set off some chlorine because we’ll get the next attack from the allies…. It is the only way they’ve got, actually, of stopping the inevitable victory of Assad in Douma,” said Lord West.
U.S. Missiles Were Shot Down in Syria, Despite Trump’s Claim
April 17 (EIRNS)—In Hialeah, Florida, President Donald Trump repeated what his military advisors had told him since April 14: that all of the missiles fired overnight by U.S., U.K. and French forces hit their targets in Syria. He went so far as to claim that Syrian and Russian air defenses “didn’t work too well.”
The Russians, however, continue to tell a completely different story than what the Pentagon presented. Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said in a briefing yesterday that the damage at the Barzeh science facility outside Damascus did not correspond with the 30 cruise missiles that the U.S. claimed were launched at it. “Moreover, the survey of the territory of this and other objects did not reveal either a large number of debris and fragmentations of ammunition, or a corresponding number of impact craters,” he said. Konashenkov went on to say that the actual U.S.-U.K.-French targets include five airfields, Shayrat among them, none of which were hit, because the attacks were successfully repelled by Syrian air defenses.
Konashenkov listed the Russian anti-aircraft systems employed by the Syrians to repel the attack, including, for the first time, the truck-mounted Pantsir S1 short range anti-aircraft/anti-missile system. The Syrians have 40 Pantsir S1 systems which fired 25 missiles and hit 24 targets. “It is to be stressed that Syrian air defense system was organized on the principle of object defense,” Konashenkov said. “Almost all objects protected by air defense systems repelled the strike.”
Austrian Foreign Minister Asserts Bombing of Syria Violates International Law
April 17 (EIRNS)—Austria’s Foreign Minister Karin Kneissl denounced the bombing raids against Syria as “going against international law which is there to prevent such actions in the first place.” She said that “in these times, foreign policy must be fact-based and not built on assumptions.” She said that too frequently, stories on crisis spots appear in social networks that cannot be documented, and if policy actions are based on such stories, they cause problems instead of solving them.
As far as the suspicion of Syrian use of chemical weapons was concerned, an onsite investigation first has to be conducted by the OPCW experts, Kneissl said, and then one should wait for the conclusion of the investigation and an official report documenting facts—this will take days, at least, and that no actions should be taken in the meantime. If any action were taken, it had to be authorized by the United Nations, anything else would be against international law, she reiterated. She will discuss the issues with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Moscow on April 20, and is expected to also address the problem in a speech she will give at the Diplomatic Academy in Moscow, on April 19.
General Kujat: No Other Syria Peace Plan than Russian One Exists
April 17 (EIRNS)—In an interview with Germany’s MDR radio, Gen. Harald Kujat (ret.), former chairman of the NATO Military Committee (2002-05), criticized the air raids against Syria as “highly problematic, because this is an attack from outside on a sovereign state.” He said that the air raids have created even more obstacles to a peace solution in Syria—which is possible only if, first, the terrorist groups in the country are fought to the point they no longer can take civilians hostage; then a political process must start. How that would look has so far been addressed only by Russia’s Putin at the start of his Syria intervention in 2015, Kujat said: end the combat actions, form a transition government and a constitutional council, followed by free elections. The West has no such plan; there is nothing one could call a strategy at all, Kujat charged.
NEW WORLD ECONOMIC ORDER
China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Goodwill Visit to Japan
April 17 (EIRNS)—On a goodwill mission to Japan, State Councillor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with Prime Minster Shinzo Abe on April 16. The two agreed to work together to further improve ties and expand cooperation. Wang said that China attaches importance to the messages Abe sent several times last year on improving relations, and he hoped that this visit would prove to be an important step in establishing normal bilateral relations between the two countries. Wang Yi also said that China attaches importance to the positive remarks made by Abe on the Belt and Road Initiative, and Japan joining the Belt and Road construction will open up new space for bilateral economic cooperation, and China is willing to discuss with Japan the proper and concrete ways for it to participate in the initiative.
Today Wang Yi also met with Toshihiro Nikai, the chairman of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, as well as with other leading LPD politicians. Wang said that he hoped that Nikai would continue to play a positive role in bringing more people in Japan to support the development of relations between China and Japan. Wang also met members of the Japanese Business Federation, the Keidanren. He again said that China welcomes Japan to join the Belt and Road Initiative, which will open up new space for bilateral economic cooperation.
Panama’s President: We Did the Right Thing in Forging Ties with China
April 17 (EIRNS)—As Panama approaches the first anniversary of establishing diplomatic relations with China, in June 2017, President Juan Carlos Varela is certain that his government “did the right thing” in taking that momentous step and is looking forward to Panama’s participation in the Belt and Road Initiative.
Speaking with Xinhua on the sidelines of the Summit of the Americas April 13, in Lima, Peru, Varela said he is very satisfied with the way that bilateral relations have advanced since last June, with more than 20 agreements signed, which are already underway. A direct Beijing-Panama flight, expanded Chinese tourism in Panama, opening up the Embassy in Beijing and Consulate in Shanghai, reflect the progress in diplomatic relations, he emphasized.
Further, “Panama embraces that vision of the Belt and Road,” Varela said, “because we are firm believers in connectivity; we [ourselves] are a great connection, because of our Canal, our ports and airports. We support every initiative that strengthens connectivity.” He reported that the first Panamanian project to be built as part of the BRI, once feasibility studies are concluded, is the high-speed train from Panama City to the border with Costa Rica, which he said, “we hope can also expand to other Central American countries.”
The Panamanian President made special reference to Chinese President Xi Jinping’s April 10 speech at the Boao Forum for Asia, in which Xi discussed China’s plans for further opening up and moving toward a “world without borders…. I think that President Xi’s message, that we live in a world where the inhabitants have the ability to develop greater trade, tourist and cultural exchange, and secure migration movements, is very positive,” Varela said.
COLLAPSING WESTERN FINANCIAL SYSTEM
Neo-Cons’ C4ADS Lies That Belt and Road Is Military Aggression
April 17 (EIRNS)—C4ADS, a neocon outfit including people from CSIS, Hudson Institute, the military, and other think tanks, issued a report today called “Harbored Ambitions—How China’s Port Investments Are Strategically Reshaping the Indo-Pacific,” which attacks China’s “claim” that the Belt and Road Initiative is “win-win” for the nations involved. They argue, rather, that it is the core of a Chinese plan to replace the U.S. influence in the Indo-Pacific region through economic and military “stealth” aggression. At the same time, the slimy Foreign Policy magazine released an article about the C4ADS report under the title “One Belt, One Road, One Happy Chinese Navy” with the blurb “Beijing is using commercial bridgeheads to give its warships staying power in the Indian Ocean.”
The C4ADS report agrees with China that the BRI is “one of the most ambitious economic initiatives in modern history,” but denies that China is interested in “win-win economic development for all nations.” They write: “The authors find that Chinese analysts unofficially discussing port investments routinely prioritize China’s national security interests over the objective of mutually beneficial economic development…. Port investments are viewed as vehicles with which China can cultivate political influence to constrain recipient countries and build dual-use infrastructure to facilitate China’s long-range naval operations.”
They analyze 15 ports being built in the region by Chinese firms, focusing on Gwadar in Pakistan, Hambantota in Sri Lanka, and Koh Kong New Port in Cambodia. They conclude that “these investments are not principally driven by the concept of win-win development as Beijing claims. Rather, the investments appear to generate political influence, stealthily expand China’s military presence, and create an advantageous environment in the region.”
The report claims the ports are unprofitable, undermine sovereignty, heavily indebt the host countries, degrade the environment, and abuse human rights.
The Conclusion of the report states that the BRI investments in ports “are both serving China’s national security interests and altering the strategic operating environment of the United States and its allies.” The authors also state that they will extend their “analytical framework” to further analyze “Chinese-funded projects around the world,” naming in particular the Piraeus port in Greece, the Margarita Island Port in Panama, and the Argentine satellite observatory base operated by China.
U.S. POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC
‘Anti-Fascist’ Blames LaRouche for Naming the British in Fake Douma Chemical Attack
April 17 (EIRNS)—In an op-ed in the Israeli daily newspaper Ha’aretztoday, Alexander Reid Ross, a lecturer in geography at Oregon’s Portland State University and self-styled “anti-fascist,” attacked American statesman Lyndon LaRouche and others who don’t accept the official and mass media narrative about Syrian President Bashar al Assad and Russian President Vladimir Putin, as “shilling for tyrants in Damascus and Moscow.” The “theme” of the piece is how “right” and “left” conspiracy theorists have come together under the “benevolent gaze” of Vladimir Putin. “In recent months, the crossover between leftists and the far-right in defense of Syria’s tyrant and Russian geopolitics has become increasingly obvious,” Ross writes. “Its implications are potentially disastrous for the course of the international left and political society in general.”
Attacking the usual targets such as radio personality Alex Jones and alternative media figures, including Vanessa Beeley and The Nation’s Stephen Cohen, who refuse to accept the mass media line about the alleged April 7 gas attack in Douma, Eastern Ghouta, Ross singles out Lyndon LaRouche for exposing the evil British Empire.
“Shortly after the Douma attacks, extreme-right activist Lyndon LaRouche blamed the U.K. for staging the chemical attack,” Ross writes. “Four days later, the Russia Federation’s spokesperson oddly echoed LaRouche’s charges that Britain had helped stage the attack….”
Now with the leading British role in pushing the attack against Russia, which is driving ISIS out of Syria, it seems once again that LaRouche is right.
SCIENCE & INFRASTRUCTURE
Energy Secretary Perry Pledges Federal Help To Keep Coal and Nuclear Plants Running
April 17 (EIRNS)—Energy Secretary Rick Perry is trying to find a way to save threatened coal and nuclear plants, stressing that their demise could be an economic threat, and also a national security threat. This gives the issue urgency, and the Department of Energy has been considering invoking Section 202(C) of the Federal Power Act, which can order certain power plants to continue running in wartime and during natural disasters.
In an April 12 hearing before the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Perry said, “The more important issue is one of national security, of being able to know without a doubt, that the energy supply will be there when we need it.”
Perry took a very personal example of the threat to the grid, asking, “Why should anyone be put in the situation to choose turning the lights on and keeping my family warm?”
On the national security issue, Perry assured the Representatives that “President Trump understands that. He has had multiple conversations with me and others in his administration to find a solution.” There is opposition within the Department to the use of federal power to override state deregulation. That approach is still under consideration, but he said, “There may be other options which we need to look at.”
At the hearing, Rep. David McKinley (R-WV) called on Perry “to use whatever legal power you have so…we can have a reliable grid system.” Perry responded, “I hope your remarks have been televised and we can put them up, because you have succinctly made the point of exactly what has to happen in this country.”
More States Consider Legislation To Save Their Nuclear Plants
April 17 (EIRNS)—The Nuclear Energy Institute lobbying group reports that there are now 18 states considering bills to protect their nuclear power plants. These are states that deregulated their energy market, such that power suppliers can offer any price, and industrial and residential consumers can choose any supplier. The lowest prices have been offered by heavily subsidized “renewables,” and fracked natural gas. The coal and nuclear plants are unable to sell their power at a price that allows them to recover their costs. Six plants have already been shuttered, and more than a dozen are on the line.
If the plants were to close, according to a Brattle Group report, electricity could increase in cost by as much as $400 million in Ohio and $285 million in Pennsylvania. In addition to the loss of 3,000 jobs, tens of millions of dollars in local tax revenues would be lost.
OTHER
L’Affaire Stormy Daniels: Pay Attention to the Man Behind the Curtain. Could It Be, Satan?
April 17 (EIRNS)—Karl Marx, quoting Hegel, once famously pronounced that all great historical events and personages repeat themselves, the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.
So it is with the 24-hour-a-day brain-soaking of the U.S. population in the Stormy Daniels affair, the latest from the very unsexy Robert Swan Mueller III, the Grand Inquisitor assigned to take down Donald Trump. The British are experts in using sexual escapades to bring down the great and not so great, and have used this tack often right here in the United States. Witness Monica Lewinsky and the setup of Bill Clinton. But, you have to admit, that the “l’Affaire Stormy Daniels,” which we call it to give it at least a hint of class, has topped it all in the surreal and the really, really disgustingly cheesy.
Here is a woman with a website stating as follows: “This Is The Official Website Of Pornstar, Director, Stripper, Screenwriter, And AVN Hall Of Fame Member Stormy Daniels. This Is An ADULTS ONLY Website That Contains Full Length Videos And Exclusive Image Series Of Stormy Daniels Naked, Having Lesbian Sex With Other Girls, And Explicit Graphic Hardcore Sex With Men.” Based on her recent tour de force attacking the President of the United States, the site now adds, “As Seen On ‘60 Minutes’ ” to tell you, oh yes, you are in the right place. Those rushing to pay the ambitious jerk-off queen for a peep don’t realize that the site is insecure and, at least on Mozilla, various warnings appear admonishing that your identity could well be toast should you leap.
According to various blurbs written by the those who follow such things, Daniels’ website traffic has increased exponentially and went sky high after she claimed she had a one-night consensual date with Donald Trump in 2006, spanked him, and signed an agreement for $130,000 to keep her mouth shut about it. The largest area of new traffic to Stormy’s porn site is, not surprisingly, Washington D.C. and environs, which is clearly hooked on the content, and wants to keep promoting the story above all else. Mind you, “l’Affaire Stormy Daniels” was the Sunday night family fare presented on “60 Minutes” by that once reputable news show. In the latest twist in this vomit-worthy plotto, Daniels claims that someone approached her in the parking lot of her gym, fittingly in Las Vegas, and threatened her with physical harm if she didn’t keep her mouth shut. A sketch of the alleged thug has now been released, and he is a dead ringer for Kato Kaelin, who, some remember, had a starring part in the O.J. Simpson saga. Didn’t I warn you we are into farcical reruns here?
Daniels is represented by Michael Avenatti, a Hollywood attorney to the rich and famous who has his own unsavory background, according to the Los Angeles Times of April 7th (http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-avenatti-stormy-trump-20180407-story.html). Adopting his tough guy style from his work with former Obama Chief of Staff and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Avenatti has a string of tax debts based on failure to pay payroll taxes and soured business and legal partners. The salacious media spotlight now focused on him has been a boon financially, as it has been for the Jezebel he represents.
Now it gets even stranger. It is this Stormy Daniels saga which resulted in the raid on Michael Cohen’s law office by the FBI and U.S. Attorney’s office about which we are now having such a high scholarly and Constitutional debate. As the story goes, Robert Swan Mueller III sicced the dogs of war on Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s attorney, because Michael Cohen’s payment to Stormy Daniels might be a violation of the Federal Election Campaign Act. To those who know the FEC and its lax enforcement, comparisons are being made to the Justice Department’s sudden passionate desire to enforce the decades-old Logan Act, never enforced really in its history, in order to set up Michael Flynn.
As a result of all of this, inclusive of the thousands of visits now enjoyed by porn queen Daniels, all communications between the President and his lawyer were seized for FBI and Justice Department review. Michael Cohen, it is claimed, now faces years upon years in prison as Mueller farms out turning him against the President to his bitter buds, the Feds at Manhattan’s federal court. Michael Cohen is the dirt of the month for the media, anyone associated with him, including Sean Hannity, is to be fired and/or shot according to our rabid media mavens. While the scholarly debate filled the nation’s TV screens concerning whether or not the Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, protecting the right to counsel and the confidentiality of the relationship between attorneys and their clients, had now joined the First, Fourth, and Fifth in becoming historical relics, Stormy Daniels and Michael Avenatti appeared outside the Manhattan courtroom where Michael Cohen’s fate hangs in the balance. Like carnival barkers, they held a press conference threatening the President, which was widely covered by our debased and ultimately absurd national press corps. They, not Mueller’s crapping all over the Constitution, were the story. Was the media’s insistence that you call Daniels an “adult film star” mentioned? Don’t call it porn, don’t call it crap, honor it. It is, after all, apparently all Robert Swan Mueller III has to peddle now.
