EIR DAILY ALERT SERVICE THURSDAY, JANUARY 31, 2019

THURSDAY, JANUARY 31, 2019 Volume 6, Number 22 EIR Daily Alert Service P.O. Box 17390, Washington, DC 20041-0390

• Trump Stands His Ground Against Intelligence Community Coup Efforts
• China’s Foreign Ministry Spokesman Tells Dan Coats to Give Up the Zero-Sum Game
• British Two-Part Operation in Venezuela Includes Interim President Guaido, and Trump IS the Target
• Mitch McConnell Pushing Legislation to Keep U.S. Troops in Syria
• Syrian Democratic Forces Militia Say ISIS on Verge of Final Defeat
• Putin’s New Flank to Restore Stability Between Syria and Turkey
• Inhofe Raves China Prepares For War But U.S. Navy Chief Praises China-U.S. Military Relations
• Venezuela’s Maduro Offers Dialogue With Trump, But Warns Bolton Blocking It
• Russia and Pakistan Cooperating to Seek Peace in Afghanistan
• French Police Use ‘Sting-Ball’ Grenades on Yellow Vest Civilians; Injure Yellow Vest Demonstrators
• Too Much Government Climate Policy Will Also Ignite Yellow Vest Protests in Germany
• Italian Senate President Issues Declaration For Global Cooperation With Russia

EDITORIAL

Trump Stands His Ground against Intelligence Community Coup Efforts

Jan. 30 (EIRNS)—Neo-con, fundie, Russiagate fanatic Dan Coats, from his unfortunate position as Director of National Intelligence, issued a frontal assault on the President of the United States on Tuesday in his written testimony before the Senate Select Intelligence Committee. In the annual global risk assessment testimony from the intelligence community, Coats targeted several key efforts which President Donald Trump has undertaken to end American subservience to British imperial dictates. Trump was unfazed, and counter-attacked on each front, including a suggestion that “intelligence should go back to school!”

Coats said that Russia and China “will collaborate to counter U.S. objectives, taking advantage of rising doubts in some places about the liberal democratic system.” To a certain extent he was correct—but he is leaving out that there is a popular revolt taking place, not in Russia or China, but across the U.S. and Europe against the failed “liberal democratic order,” which would better be identified as the “British system.” This, in fact, was the root of the revolt in the U.S. which resulted in the election of Donald Trump, driven by disgust with the collapse of industry, infrastructure, health care, education, as well as the mass drug war destroying the citizenry, and the “endless wars” which Trump has sworn to end. It is also the root of the Yellow Vests revolt in France, the Brexit in the U.K., the election of the new government in Italy which is denouncing EU austerity dictates, and embracing China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

Coats is also, clearly, attacking Trump’s insistence that he intends to make the U.S. a “friend” of Russia and China—a direct threat to the British division of the world so beloved by Coats and his neo-conservative Republican friends, as well as his neo-liberal Democratic friends.

Coats also lied on several fronts, and Trump responded:

• Coats said: “We continue to assess that North Korea is unlikely to give up all of its nuclear weapons and production capabilities, even as it seeks to negotiate partial denuclearization steps to obtain key U.S. and international concessions.” This openly accuses Trump of being duped by Kim Jong Un into making concessions. Trump tweeted in response: “…North Korea relationship is best it has ever been with U.S. No testing, getting remains, hostages returned. Decent chance of Denuclearization. Time will tell what will happen with North Korea, but at the end of the previous administration, relationship was horrendous and very bad things were about to happen. Now a whole different story. I look forward to seeing Kim Jong Un shortly. Progress being made—big difference!”

• Coats said that ISIS “will exploit any reduction in counter terrorism pressure to strengthen its clandestine presence and accelerate rebuilding key capabilities…. ISIS very likely will continue to pursue external attacks from Iraq and Syria against regional and Western adversaries, including the United States.” This clearly declares Trump’s intention to withdraw from Syria (and Afghanistan) as a horrible mistake which will be responsible for ISIS attacks on the U.S. Trump responded: “When I became President, ISIS was out of control in Syria & running rampant. Since then tremendous progress made, especially over last 5 weeks. Caliphate will soon be destroyed, unthinkable two years ago. Negotiating are proceeding well in Afghanistan after 18 years of fighting.”

Trump also rejected the contention by Coats that Iran may “resume nuclear activities” because Trump pulled out of the Iran deal. Trump responded that, when he took office, Iran was “making trouble all over the Middle East, and beyond,” but now “they are MUCH different,” due to his tough posture. He called the intelligence community “extremely naive,” and suggested they should “go back to school.” While this was said in regard to Iran, it clearly was meant to be applied to all of Coats’ attacks on the peace process which Trump is leading.

Look around the world. The “perpetual conflicts” established by the British Empire to keep the world divided and at war are crumbling, one by one, under Trump’s direct intervention: the astonishing peace process in Korea, brought about through cooperation between the U.S., Russia and China; the horrendous no-win war in Afghanistan finally coming to a possible end through negotiations; ending the Syria bloodbath, by rejecting “regime change” in favor of defeating the terrorists.

This is also the only way to understand the dangerous development in Venezuela. As you will see below, the self-declared new President of Venezuela, Juan Guaidó, is a Manchurian Candidate, created by British and American intelligence services over the past 15 years, and explicitly part of the British coup attempt against Trump—to stop his peace-making, and turn him against Russia and China yet again, this time in the Americas.

Trump is the only thing that stands between the human race and nuclear war, provoked by a desperate British Empire. Whatever his peculiarities, his courageous stand against the war party must be defended. As we have repeatedly insisted, the best way to defeat the Empire’s coup attempt is for the President to release all the Russiagate documents, now, and lay the crimes of British intelligence against the American Republic before the eyes of the world.

U.S. POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC

China’s Foreign Ministry Spokesman Tells Dan Coats To Give Up the Zero-Sum Game

Jan. 30 (EIRNS)— During today’s regular press briefing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang replied sharply to a question about U.S. Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Dan Coats’s ravings yesterday in Washington, in which he had charged that Russia and China were “eroding well-established norms and trying to rebuild the international system,” while increasing the risk of “regional threats.”

As major powers with global influence, Geng said, China and Russia, both permanent members of the UN Security Council, “maintain that concerted efforts should be made to uphold the international order with the purposes and principles of the UN Charter at the center, promote multipolarity in the world, and make international relations more democratic.” Relations between the two nations are at their “best time in history,” he continued, precisely because they “have left behind the outdated zero-sum game mindset which presupposes that two major powers must be either allies or rivals, [and instead] regarded each other as source of development opportunities, and established the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership of Coordination.” The two, he said, have forged “a new type of state-to-state relations.”

As to whether the two nations increase the risk of regional threats, Geng recalled his answer a year ago, when U.S. officials addressing a Senate hearing singled out China and Russia as threats. What he had stated at that time is still relevant, Geng said: “It baffles me as to where the U.S. derives its strong sense of insecurity. I want to stress that it is impossible to find absolute security in the world. Moreover, no country should even think of achieving its security at the expense of others’ security.” The Chinese side, he said, “always advocates a new security concept featuring common, comprehensive, cooperative, and sustainable security. … The U.S. should follow the call of the times for peace and development and make concerted efforts with China, Russia, and other members of the international community to jointly uphold world peace and security.”

British Two-Part Operation in Venezuela Includes Interim President Guaidó, and Trump Is a Target

Jan. 30 (EIRNS)—As investigative journalists Max Blumenthal and Dan Cohen demonstrate in an article published Jan. 29 by the Grayzone, Venezuela’s self-proclaimed “interim president” Juan Guaidó is really a nobody, something like a Manchurian Candidate. Far from being the savior of Venezuelan democracy, the unelected 35-year-old president of Venezuela’s National Assembly is a creation of the global, London-spawned “Project Democracy” apparatus—funded by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), USAID, and assorted George Soros-linked entities—for the sole purpose of launching a color revolution in Venezuela.

But what Blumenthal and Cohen fail to mention or understand is that the apparatus they accurately describe is only one part of a two-pronged assault on Venezuela which began with the installation of the London-created and -directed Jacobin operation in the 1990s, first with Hugo Chávez and continued by his successor Nicolas Maduro—an operation which EIR has thoroughly documented. “Chavismo,” which the leftist Blumenthal defends, forged a strategic alliance with the FARC cocaine cartel (also run out of London), and wrecked the country, economically and politically, setting it up for what is occurring today: a Gene Sharp color revolution, also run from London, in which Guaidó, and many others like him, are just useful fools carrying out their assigned tasks.

Nota bene: This is part and parcel of London’s coup against the U.S. President, as Trump is being urged to buy into the “defend democracy” fraud, perpetrated by the London-backed war-mongers in his cabinet—Pence, Pompeo, Bolton—and elsewhere. Trump today spoke to Guaidó by phone and congratulated him on his efforts.

On the Guaidó side of the operation note the following:

• Guaidó belonged to a group of Venezuelan “student leaders” who were selected as early as 2005 and sent to Belgrade, Serbia sponsored by the Center for Applied Non-Violent Action and Strategies (CANVAS), an offshoot of OTPOR, which was instrumental in the overthrow of Serbia’s Slobodan Milosevic. It is financed by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the National Republican Institute, the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, among other assets of Project Democracy.

• According to a leaked email from the CIA-linked Stratfor, OTPOR “turned its attention to Venezuela” in 2005 “after training opposition movements that led pro-NATO regime change operations across Eastern Europe.” It stated that “student movements” in Venezuela would be crucial in eventually triggering a revolution there. Guaidó would go on to become part of the group of “student leaders” known as the Generation 2007, who would lead violent protests in Venezuela against Chávez and then Maduro.

• Guaidó’s Popular Will party, which he helped form with former Caracas mayor and mentor Leopoldo López, a Princeton-trained oligarch for years financed by the NED, is described by Blumenthal as “the most violent, radical right-wing party in Venezuela functioning as shock troops of oligarchy,” and hated by those who want to avoid civil war.

• Guaidó graduated from Andres Bello Catholic University in Venezuela, and then went to George Washington University in D.C. in 2007 to enroll in the Governance and Political Management Program, under the tutelage of rabid Friedmanite economist Luis Enrique Berrizbeitia, a former Executive Director of the IMF. As Venezuelan investigative reporter Diego Sequera reported, Guaidó is more popular outside Venezuela than inside, “especially in the elite Ivy League and Washington circles.”

STRATEGIC WAR DANGER

Mitch McConnell Pushing Legislation To Keep U.S. Troops in Syria

Jan. 30 (EIRNS)—Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) wants to make keeping U.S. troops in Syria a matter of law, in direct opposition to President Donald Trump’s announced intention to withdraw. CNN reported yesterday that he has an amendment to a Middle East policy bill that would acknowledge that “al Qaeda, ISIS and their affiliates in Syria and Afghanistan continue to pose a serious threat to us here at home.”

“It would recognize the dangers of a precipitous withdrawal from either conflict and highlight the need for diplomatic engagement and political solutions to the underlying conflicts in Syria and Afghanistan,” McConnell said Jan. 29 from the Senate floor. He went on that, “while it is tempting to retreat to the comfort and security of our own shores, there is still a great deal of work to be done…. [W]e’re not the world’s policemen, but we are the leaders of the free world.”

The amendment would be added to an underlying bill, dubbed the “Strengthening America’s Security in the Middle East Act,” which includes new sanctions against Syria’s central bank and individuals providing support for the Syrian government. It boosts military support for Israel and Jordan, and makes it easier for states and localities to approve laws to combat the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement against Israel.

Syrian Democratic Forces Militia Says ISIS on Verge of Final Defeat

Jan. 30 (EIRNS)—The Syrian Democratic Forces, the Kurdish- dominated militia created by the U.S. to fight ISIS in Syria, claimed, yesterday, that the noose is being closed on the last remnants of ISIS in Syria. Mustafa Bali, spokesman for the SDF said that the remnants of ISIS have been squeezed into an area of about 6 square kilometers on the Euphrates River near Iraq, reported Military Times. Bali said that the remaining ISIS fighters have been asking for safe passage to either Turkey or Idlib province, which is mostly controlled by Hayat Tahrir al Sham, the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda.

“All their demands were rejected by the Syrian Democratic Forces,” Bali said. “[The] operation will go on until the last terrorist is dead.”

Putin’s New Flank To Restore Stability Between Syria and Turkey

Jan. 30 (EIRNS)—When they met in Moscow on Jan. 23, Russian President Vladimir Putin raised to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan the possibility of reviving the 1998 Adana security agreement signed between Turkey and Syria. A report in Al Monitor not only provides some detail about the agreement, but also suggests that this is a new flank by Russia to restore Syrian-Turkish relations and Syrian sovereignty over eastern Syria. Al Monitor’s Turkish correspondent Fehim Tastekin reports that the 1998 agreement was signed after Syria had agreed to expel Abdullah Ocalan, the founder of the separatist Kurdistan People’s Party (PKK), who now sits in a Turkish prison.

“The deal stipulated naming the PKK as a terror outfit, closing training camps, terminating its organizational and commercial activities, handing over captured militants, preventing PKK leaders from traveling to other countries via Syria and setting up telephone connections between the two countries,” Tastekin writes. “Twenty years later, a move to revive the pact will require Ankara and Damascus to work together. Turkish political opposition parties see the reference to the accord as meaning the government must speak with Damascus.”

The Turks have responded positively to Putin’s invoking of the treaty, because, they say, it gives Turkey the right to intervene in Syria, that is, chasing terrorist suspects as far as 5 km into Syrian territory, in case of a terror attack in Turkey; but Tastekin says that there is no such stipulation in the text of the agreement. What Putin has in mind, however, is not that but something different, Tastekin reports. His approach is for the Syrian army to take control of the area and to find solutions to Turkey’s security concerns within the Adana Accord.

Inhofe Raves China Prepares for War, but U.S. Navy Chief Praises U.S.-China Military Relations

Jan. 30 (EIRNS)—In a rant during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on the alleged threats to the U.S. from Russia and China, committee chairman James Inhofe (R-OK) declared that China’s ongoing military buildup on islands in the South China Sea is akin to “preparing for World War III.” A day earlier, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson gave a much more positive review of U.S.-China military relations during remarks made at the Brookings Institution. Richardson told his audience that the U.S. and Chinese navies are engaged in “continuous dialogues” to reduce the risk of a military miscalculation in the South China Sea. He said that the interchanges between the two navies aim to build communication to avoid a potentially disastrous blunder. The discussions are a positive sign that China and the U.S. are moving forward with a plan to reduce tensions in the disputed waters.

The South China Morning Post, in covering Richardson’s comments, writes that concerns about a naval incident rose after the encounter in October in which a Chinese destroyer had come within about 40 meters of the USS Decatur. Richardson said a reliable communication mechanism needs to be in place. “If something should happen, we can call each other up and de-escalate that before it gets too hot,” he said.

Richardson otherwise called his visit to Beijing, which he concluded last week, “rich” and said that the two sides “continue to meet and communicate” to “get a better understanding of each other’s intent.” But he stressed that the two naval forces still have disagreements. “Our understanding of the South China Sea and those sorts of things are just at odds right now,” he said, without elaborating.

Venezuela’s Maduro Offers Dialogue with Trump, but Warns Bolton Is Blocking It

Jan. 30 (EIRNS)—In an interview with Sputnik published Jan. 29, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said he is ready to talk with President Donald Trump, anywhere and at any time, to discuss any issue the U.S. President wants.

“I’ve sent him messages,” he said, “but [National Security Adviser John] Bolton prevented Donald Trump from initiating a dialogue with Nicolas Maduro. … I am ready to talk with Donald Trump personally. I’m convinced that if we meet in person, it would be a different story. But, I think they won’t give us a chance.”

Maduro labeled as “very infantile” and “clownish” the stunt that Bolton pulled yesterday when he appeared at a podium with a notepad on which he had written down “5,000 troops to Colombia,” suggesting a future U.S. military deployment. Bolton is acting as if he were the U.S. President, Maduro said. Colombian government officials have denied any such deployment.

Maduro also said he’s quite willing to hold new parliamentary elections, as this would provide a good opportunity to engage in a national dialogue. He declared that several governments and world organizations are calling for dialogue between the government and the opposition, and Maduro said he’s willing to hold such a dialogue anywhere, at any time and in any format. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, TASS reports, has said that Russia is willing to facilitate a dialogue between the Maduro government and the opposition, and is discussing this with China and European and Ibero-American nations.  Thus far, he said, opposition leaders are reluctant to accept such initiatives, “encouraged by their Western sponsors.”

Spanish news service EFE reported late this afternoon that the governments of Mexico and Uruguay, neither of which recognizes the upstart Juan Guaidó as Venezuela’s interim president, are convening an international conference to be held in Montevideo, Uruguay on Feb. 7, to discuss a diplomatic solution to the Venezuelan crisis. According to a press release by the Uruguayan Foreign Ministry, representatives from ten countries and international organizations will attend the conference.

Russia and Pakistan Cooperate To Seek Peace in Afghanistan

Jan. 30 (EIRNS)—The Russian and Pakistani governments are cooperating to help forge a peace settlement for Afghanistan, another breach in the old paradigm, by which Pakistan primarily worked with China, and Russia primarily with India. Russia’s Special Presidential Envoy for Afghanistan Zamir Kabulov has been in Islamabad, Pakistan, TASS reported, and “Pakistani partners” have committed themselves to working closely with Russia, both on bilateral issues as well as on an Afghan peace settlement.

Among issues discussed during the Islamabad meetings, Kabulov said, were the recent meetings between the U.S. delegation, led by Special Envoy for Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad, and the Taliban. However, neither Russia nor Pakistan has gotten a full report on the outcome of those talks, he explained. But, he said, Russia is determined “to play a constructive role to contribute to a speedy national reconciliation in Afghanistan and ending the civil war in that country.” Russia and Pakistan are also observing U.S. efforts to reach an agreement with the Taliban, including on the withdrawal of foreign troops from the country. “This would be a key step on a long path of establishing peace in Afghanistan,” he said.

Kabulov pointed out that the Pakistani leadership is impartially assessing “its role in launching a peace process.” Moreover, he said, Pakistan is also playing a key role in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), and especially in the SCO-Afghanistan Contact Group. This would also be a good time for Afghanistan to start “actively participating in all SCO programs,” he said.

While Kabulov said that the Moscow format of talks on Afghanistan is the best venue to discuss settlement issues, he also said that it is not meant to rival other venues. He further declared that it is a unique format, however, as, for the first time, the Taliban delegation took part along with representatives of many other regional states; and he underscored that all participants—Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Russia, and China—face a common enemy, which is the Islamic State.

French Police Use ‘Sting-Ball’ Grenades on Civilians, Injures Yellow Vest Demonstrators

Jan. 30 (EIRNS)—Why is the EU silent about the use of dangerous force by French police against the Yellow Vests demonstrations? The French police are using “sting-ball” grenades, which look and operate like military hand grenades. They use 25 grams of TNT, small rubber pellets, and CS gas, and make a very loud noise. At distances closer than 50, feet these pellets can pierce the skin, seriously injure eyes, and even cause blindness and deafness. France is the only European country that uses the grenades against civilians.

Jérôme Rodrigues, one of the leaders of the Yellow Vests movement, was pictured in an article in the Guardian with a bandaged eye and a face bloody from the grenades. Yellow Vests and human rights organizations have taken legal action following incidents in which people are alleged to have lost eyes and to have had their hands and feet mutilated. France’s legal advisory body, the council of state, will examine a complaint today by the French Human Rights League and the CGT trade union federation, demanding that police be banned from using this weapon. France’s rights ombudsman has long warned they are dangerous and carry “disproportionate risk.”

Aïnoha Pascual, a Paris lawyer representing several of the injured people, including one person who had part of his hand ripped off, and another left partially deaf and with facial injuries, was quoted in theGuardian article saying that never in recent history had so many serious injuries been seen during protests. She compared these sting-ball grenades to military weapons. “These weapons are a very real problem. In the 1980s, if one person was hit in the eye at a demonstration there would be a huge reaction, yet, now, there is no reaction from government.”

In a statement yesterday, French Interior Minister Christophe Castaner would only acknowledge that 1,900 people had been injured since the start of the Yellow Vests demonstrations in November. Castaner said that 1,200 police officers had been injured as well and that officers’ use of weapons were “proportionate” to the threat against them. Because France is dealing with a “crisis” situation, he said, any review of policing would not happen at the present time.

Arié Alimi, another lawyer for several people who have been injured, said, “What is shocking is, there is no government apology to those who have been injured.”

Although the EU is forever denouncing police violence in African, Asian, and South American countries, France goes untouched. It was this type of police repression in 2012 and 2014 in Greece which was used to repress and ultimately stop mass public demonstrations.

ECONOMY

Too Much Government Climate Policy Will Also Ignite Yellow Vest Protests in Germany

Jan. 30 (EIRNS)—Armin Laschet, one of the vice chairmen of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s CDU and Minister President of Germany’s largest state of North Rhine Westphalia, warns in an interview with Bildzeitung today, that “climate protection is important, but we must not go too far on it.”

“The Yellow Vests movement in France was ignited by ecology taxes on gasoline. There are [now the] first protests against [diesel] car bans also in our country. I am watching that very closely,” Laschet said. “If we impose restrictions on the citizens, making life for them ever more difficult, we will get protests instead of acceptance. The pendulum can swing back very strongly then, if policymakers do not watch out.”

THE NEW GLOBAL ECONOMIC ORDER

Italian Senate President Issues Declaration for Global Cooperation with Russia

Jan. 30 (EIRNS)—Speaking to the Russian Federation Council, the legislature’s upper house, Italian Senate President Maria Elisabetta Alberti Casellati issued a powerful declaration to end the anti-Russia hysteria and forge major-power cooperation for peace and development.

“One of the reasons why we believe that close cooperation between Russia and Italy, Russia and Europe, Russia and the West is crucial, is because we understand the most important role your country plays in maintaining the fragile balance on the international stage,” she told the senators in the Federation Council, and stating further that it was a role “that may prove crucial in the face of the serious threat to global peace,” TASS reported today.

“Russia performs the most important task of stabilizing the situation in conflict zones and fighting against terrorism in its many manifestations,” Alberti Casellati said.

On great power cooperation, she said, “I think it is very important for great powers such as the United States and Russia, together with other big foreign policy players, to find a way to closely and constructively cooperate for the sake of stability and global security.”

She also pointed out that the European Union, NATO, and Russia needed to create conditions to overcome sanctions, which were harmful to all, and to build a dialogue based on common features, instead of emphasizing differences.

“Without a doubt, there is more than a link but a set of features shared by Russia and Europe. There can be no talk about the European civilization without Russia.”

Reach us at eirdailyalert@larouchepub.com or call 1-571-293-0935