EIR Daily Alert Service!
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WEDNESDAY, APRIL 12, 2017 Volume 4, Number 72 EIR Daily Alert Service P.O. Box 17390, Washington, DC 20041-0390
EDITORIALBritish Claim Credit for Trump’s Disastrous Mistake; Empire Must Be Destroyed To Prevent Global WarApril 11 (EIRNS)—The British are taking full credit for the U.S. criminal attack on Syria last week; for “persuading” President Trump to turn against Assad and the Russians; and for deploying U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to Moscow on behalf of the British Empire to tell the Putin Administration it must get out of Syria or face war. This last claim—that Tillerson is London’s puppet in his visit to Russia Tuesday and Wednesday—is not at all certain, and may be a total lie, but there is no end to British officials and British press whores (including those in the U.S.) trying to dictate to Tillerson that he must fill that role. In fact, the G7 Foreign Ministers meeting in Italy, which concluded today, was a setback for the British scheme. British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson demanded new sanctions against Russia, claiming they were complicit in the alleged Syrian chemical weapons attack. But both the European and Japanese representatives rejected this outright, demanding instead that a UN investigation must first determine the facts surrounding the chemical weapons incident. The British fallback is that they will provoke another fake incident in Syria and dupe Trump again into another military blunder. Meanwhile, both President Putin and the Russian Defense Ministry reported today that the terrorists in Syria are now moving chemical weapons into four critical locations, to “forge another pretext for accusing the Syrian government of using chemical weapons and triggering new U.S. airstrike.” The Defense Ministry “warned against such inadmissible steps.” Putin said that this is a re-run of 2003, when the Bush Administration claimed the Iraq government had chemical and nuclear weapons, in order to justify an attack, “which ended with the destruction of the country, an increased terrorist threat and the emergence of ISIS on the international scene—no more, no less.” “The British Empire has been the enemy of mankind for a long time,” Lyndon LaRouche said today in response to the British campaign. “Shut down the British System! The U.S. is a nation—always has been a nation, despite some troubles, so we must not submit. We can do it—organize with our instruments to shut this down. We’re Americans! Don’t give in. Nations in Asia are involved, some people in Europe. They have rights—these bastards have no rights.” He continued: “The people of the world, we represent them. Not everyone agrees with that, but we have the authority to determine what the relationship among peoples must be. Policies like these must be cancelled, and people who perform them must be punished. Do that, and we win. Anything else, we lose. Shut them down, the Brits in particular.” Numerous American patriots are warning that the madness coming out of the Trump Administration this past week totally contradicts everything that Trump had been committed to throughout his campaign, from “no more world policeman,” to being friends with Russia, and to being President of the United States, not the world. What they miss, in nearly all cases, is the open, public role of the British and their assets in the U.S. One blatant example: The Guardian in London, openly threatened Syria with the “Libya treatment,” claiming that Tillerson would “offer the Putin regime a bald choice, between cutting Bashar al-Assad loose … or continuing to back him, and risking a Libyan-style outcome.” They go on: “The Libyan leader, Muammar Qaddafi, was violently deposed and killed in 2011 by rebels, lent air support by NATO powers, including the U.K.” This British sewer did not bother to mention that Libya, a prosperous and relatively peaceful nation until the British and their Saudi cohorts armed Wahhabi terrorists to provoke a civil war, with Obama’s blessing, has now become a terrorist Hell, at the center of the millions of people driven out of their homes as refugees across the region. It is of note, however, that on Sunday Tillerson pointed to that Libyan disaster as the reason that the U.S. (if Tillerson is in fact speaking for the government) will not force a regime change upon Syria. His meetings in Moscow on Wednesday will be crucial in determining the direction of this dangerous process. The Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) issued a Memorandum to President Trump today “Trump Should Rethink Syria Escalation,” which begins: “We write to give you an unambiguous warning of the threat of armed hostilities with Russia—with the risk of escalation to nuclear war,” signed by 24 former leading intelligence officers from U.S. government and military intelligence institutions. VIPS, set up in January 2003 by intelligence officers who saw that then President Bush was being lied to about Iraq’s non-existent weapons of mass destruction, write: “Our U.S. Army contacts in the area have told us … there was no Syrian ‘chemical weapons attack,’ ” but that the Russians and Syrians are telling the truth that a terrorist chemical weapons facility, believed to be a conventional weapons depot, was bombed, causing the disaster. They call on Trump to instruct Tillerson to set up an immediate summit with Putin, to “prevent relations with Russia from falling into a state of complete disrepair.” LaRouche concluded that we are witnessing “treason against the U.S. from the inside, using forces inside the government to destroy that government. No British institution has the right to meddle in American affairs. Obama is an example of this evil. Mankind has to learn to fight, to shut down things that are wrong. The British Empire is wrong—with some good people hiding under their skirts. People must have the guts to do what must be done. The time has come to crush this thing. Get this nation and other nations to agree to that.” STRATEGIC WAR DANGERPutin Warns of New Syria Provocations, Lays Blame on ObamaApril 11 (EIRNS)—Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that new provocations by terrorists using chemical weapons are being planned to put the blame on Syria. He also took an interesting swipe against former President Barack Obama as responsible for the international support for the U.S. strike against Syria. In a joint press conference with visiting Italian President Sergio Mattarella, Putin warned: “We have information from different sources that these provocations—I cannot call them otherwise—are being prepared in other regions of Syria, including in the southern suburbs of Damascus, where there are plans to throw some substance and accuse the official Syrian authorities,” Putin said. According to a report from TASS, Putin said the U.S. strike against Syria reminded him of its attack on Iraq in 2003, when the United States launched a military campaign under the unproven pretext of Baghdad’s alleged possession of chemical weapons, Putin said. “This [the U.S. strike on Syria] strongly reminds of the 2003 events when U.S. representatives in the UN Security Council showed allegedly chemical weapons found in Iraq,” the Russian President said. “After that, a military campaign started in Iraq and it ended with the destruction of the country, the growth of the terrorist threat, and the emergence of the ISIL [the former name of the Islamic State terrorist organization outlawed in Russia] on the international scene, no more and no less. The same is happening now,” the Russian President said. The Russian President also warned Trump that his decision to launch missile strikes on Syria could be used by his political opponents. “If something happens, they will put the whole blame on him,” Putin said. “I have no doubt about this.” Russian Foreign Ministry Comments on Tillerson VisitApril 11 (EIRNS)—The Russian Foreign Ministry posted a statement, this morning, in anticipation of the visit to Moscow of U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. It makes clear that the tensions in U.S.-Russian relations are the result of U.S. policies, especially in Ukraine and Syria and stemming from the Obama years, despite the hypocritical effort to blame Russia for both of these crises. “We did not provoke the unconstitutional coup in Ukraine, we did not stir up the fire of the so-called ‘Arab spring,’ ” the statement says. Russia, going forward, “is not going to surrender its legitimate interests and accepts cooperation only on an equal basis, which is not to everyone’s liking in Washington,” the statement goes on. “We have always been open to candid dialogue with the United States on all issues on the bilateral and international agenda and for cooperation in the areas where we have similar goals. These include the fight against terrorism, non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the settlement of regional conflicts, economic growth and many other areas where the conjunction of Russian and American efforts would benefit not just their people but humankind as a whole.” On Syria, “we would like to understand whether Washington intends to resume practical cooperation with Russia in the fight against terrorism, including in Syria. The recent U.S. air strike at the Syrian Shairat air base is an act of aggression against a sovereign state committed in violation of international law, and will most likely strengthen the terrorists.” The Russians “firmly expect” that the U.S. will agree to “an objective investigation with the involvement of the OPCW” into the April 4 alleged chemical attack at Khan Sheikhoun. The Syrian government has been blamed, without proof, the statement says, even though it’s well known that Jabhat al Nusra controls the area and was engaged in manufacturing land mines stuffed with poisonous substances. “In this situation, we are surprised by Washington’s disregard for reports about the use of chemical weapons by terrorists in the Middle East,” not just in Syria, but in Iraq, too. And it goes on further from there, not only on Syria, here the ministry’s statement wonders when the U.S. will dissociate itself from “the notorious White Helmets and other pseudo-NGOs whose barefaced lies about the situation in Syria are eagerly taken up by the media”—to Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Afghanistan, North Korea, and Ukraine, in which locations Moscow would like to know what U.S. plans are. The statement concludes with a note on U.S.-Russian bilateral relations, and with a warning also. “Since nothing is being done to settle the problems in bilateral relations, we will have to take reciprocal measures,” it says. “Overall, we hope that the U.S. Secretary of State will share with us Washington’s views on all issues of mutual concern. We are ready for any turn of events. However, we would prefer our interaction to help reduce rather than aggravate international tensions. We are not set for confrontation but for constructive cooperation and hope that this is what our American partners want, too.” Expanded G7 Meeting on Syria Refuses To Back New Sanctions against RussiaApril 11 (EIRNS)—The meeting on Syria held in Lucca, Italy on the sidelines of the G7 foreign ministers meeting, refused to back the British demand for new sanctions against Russia. This was after a British smoke-and-mirrors campaign to give the appearance that U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was marching in lockstep with British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson in insisting on immediate sanctions against Russia over its support for Syrian President Bashar Assad. The meeting concluded that the issue must not be brought up until a full international investigation into the chemical weapon incident. Russia has called for a full investigation as well. British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson made numerous noises about sanctions and accusations about the nastiness of the Russians, but when the smoke began to clear and the mirrors were removed on the morning of April 11, it soon became evident that the sanctions had zero support among the other Europeans, especially Germany and Italy. The meeting involving 12 nations, which included the foreign ministers of the G7 countries—chaired this year by Italy—plus Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Qatar, lasted just one hour. Conference host Italian Foreign Minister Angelino Alfano told the press afterward: “At the moment there is no consensus on new sanctions as an effective instrument…. There are clearly different opinions. “We don’t have a consensus on how to use sanctions as an instrument for achievement of goals. Italy has always stressed that sanctions could not be an ultimate goal. That is why we are against their automatic extension.” British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson had brought up the issue, Alfano said, “But we came to conclusion that we should not force Russia into a corner.” Also confirming that Johnson had brought up the issue, French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said the diplomats had not discussed the issue in any depth. Former U.K. Ambassador Warns of ISIS ‘False Flag’ Provocations To Set Up War, à la IraqApril 11 (EIRNS)—Former British Ambassador to Syria Peter Ford is warning against a rush into war against Syria. Remember the 2002-03 run-up to the war against Iraq, he told BBC in an April 7 interview. The experts, the intelligence agencies and the politicians were convinced that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. “They produced reams of evidence—photographs, diagrams. It was all wrong…. It’s possible that they are wrong in this instance as well, and they are just looking for a pretext to attack Syria.” BBC goaded him, saying he sounded like a “chime with Russia,” a “lone voice going against Michael Fallon,” Britain’s defense secretary. “I don’t leave my brains at the door when I examine a situation analytically,” Ford responded drily, especially when intelligence experts have an agenda. President Trump’s bombing of Syria “has given jihadis a thousand reasons to stage fake-flag atrocities,” and put the blame on the Syrian government, he stressed. Terrorist groups had done that in August 2016 when they mounted a chlorine attack on civilians. “Mark my words; you are hearing it here. And it will happen, and we will get all the war-mongers coming to tell us that Assad is defying us and we must go more heavily into Syria. This will be fake flag…. We will all pay the consequences.” South Korea Tries To Reassure Citizens, Trump Will Not Attack North Korea without Seoul’s OKApril 11 (EIRNS)—The U.S. attack on Syria, the deployment of the U.S. Navy carrier Battle Group 1 to the Korea region, and a Trump tweet this morning have set the South Korean population on edge, concerned that Trump may attack North Korea and provoke full-scale war on the peninsula. South Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman Cho June-hyuck tried this morning to reassure the nation, telling the press, “The United States makes it clear that it will not take a new policy or measure without consultations with us.” The New York Times reports that a Defense Ministry spokesman also warned that “South Koreans should not be deluded by unfounded rumors spreading online.” Moon Jae-in, a leader of the main opposition Democratic Party, issued a warning against any American pre-emptive strike: “The safety of South Korea is as important as that of the United States,” he said. “There should never be a pre-emptive strike without South Korean consent. Neighboring countries are taking advantage of the absence of a President in South Korea to try to exclude us and handle issues on the Korean Peninsula according to their own understanding,” he said, without mentioning the Trump administration by name. U.S. POLITICAL AND ECONOMICNational Security Council Officials Escalate for Britain’s Drive for U.S. War with RussiaApril 11 (EIRNS)—Three U.S. “senior administration officials,” speaking on background at a briefing at the White House today, released a preposterous, three-and-a-half page unclassified summary of the so-called “intelligence” justifying their charge that the Syrian government carried out a chemical weapons attack on Khan Sheikhoun on April 4. This latest “dodgy dossier” (“The Assad Regime’s Use of Chemical Weapons on April 4, 2017”) and the briefing given by the officials identified by USAToday as from the National Security Council, cite as “proof” the widespread “open source reporting,” which they assert coheres with signals, geospatial, and laboratory intelligence which, however, cannot be released “due to the need to protect sources and methods.” Unsaid, is that the primary source of “open-source reporting” on the incident comes from the terrorist-allied “White Helmets” organization founded by a former British military officer and financed by the U.K. Defense Ministry and U.S. State Department’s USAID, who work hand-in-hand with al-Qaeda linked forces. The briefing and dossier were given out as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson landed in Moscow for talks which had originally been scheduled as part of efforts of both nations to reestablish relations destroyed by President Obama. This was a clearly-timed provocation, to bolster the British-dictated line that Russia must be isolated for refusing to go along with their line that “Assad did it.” On April 10, world media went to town reporting the charge by an anonymous “high-level official” in the Trump administration that U.S. intelligence had found that Russia was complicit in the chemical weapons attack. The official had clearly gone too far, and a White House statement was issued late Monday evening clarifying that U.S. did not have such intelligence. So, on Tuesday, the officials pushing that line came back with the release of the dodgy dossier, the greater part of which consists of attacks on Russia for seeking “to confuse the world community” by discussing ISIS’s known use of chemical weapons in both Iraq and Syria, and by defending the Syrian government. The officials made innuendos of possible Russian involvement in the incident, but were careful to say that the only charge they were prepared to allege against Russia “right now,” is that Moscow is carrying out an “obfuscatory information campaign.” The briefers baldly justified their reliance on “open source” reports from the Syrian opposition, on the grounds that for the opposition to have fabricated all the videos, “would have required a highly organized campaign to deceive multiple media outlets and human rights organizations while evading detection”—even as they carried out a highly organized campaign charging that anyone in the global community who refuses to regurgitate their line will be hit with sanctions, vilified, and hung from lampposts! More Americans Join In Call To Mobilize against New WarApril 11 (EIRNS)—Conservative figure and former three time Presidential advisor Pat Buchanan issued a call for American citizens to let President Trump know that those who elected him “to keep us out of unnecessary wars” will not stand with him, if he starts a Syrian war, which “would consume Trump’s Presidency,” and quickly become a war with Russia, Iran and Hezbollah, as well. Dismissing the evidence presented against Syria and the U.S. missile attack as unconstitutional, Buchanan concluded his piece, viewed by over 127,000 people less than 24 hours after its posting to his website, with this call to arms: “In 2013, a great national coalition came together to compel Congress to deny Barack Obama authority to take us to war in Syria. We are back at that barricade. An after-Easter battle is shaping up in Congress on the same issue: Is the President authorized to take us into war against Assad and his allies inside Syria? If, after Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Yemen, we do not want America in yet another Mideast war, the time to stop it is before the War Party has us already in it. That time is now.” Iraq War veteran Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard has refused to back down in the face of the witchhunt some in the Democratic Party have launched against her. She reiterated again today, this time to The Hill, that “we need to learn from Iraq and Libya—wars that were propagated as necessary to relieve human suffering, but actually increased human suffering many times over…. There is a reason our Constitution gives Congress the power to declare war: we should be shown the evidence and given the opportunity to debate the strategy and sacrifice expected. No leader of either party, pro or against military intervention should let our President take us down the path to another regime change war without that debate.” Former CIA analyst and counterterrorism officer turned whistleblower, John Kiriakou, unbowed by 23 months in jail under the Obama regime for his attempts to oppose the Bush administration’s torture program, spoke out in two ways today, to head off “An Unwinnable War in Syria.” Kiriakou joined 23 other former U.S. intelligence officials in the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) in issuing a memorandum “Trump Should Rethink Syria Escalation,” urging him “to rethink his claims blaming the Syrian government for the chemical deaths in Idlib,” warning of the threat of nuclear war with Russia in the wake of the cruise missile attack on Syria. Kiriakou’s article today in “Reader Supported News,” emphasized the one solution possible to the Syria crisis: “It’s not quick and it’s not sexy. It’s called diplomacy. Whether Trump likes Assad’s politics or not, the only way to save the country from becoming a failed state or an ISIS state is to sit at the table with all the stakeholders. Those include Syria, Russia, and, yes, Iran. We are going to have to accept the fact that Assad is not going anywhere. Nor should he. His is the internationally-recognized government of Syria, no matter what Trump and Obama have said. We should respect that and bring him to the negotiating table.” THE NEW GLOBAL ECONOMIC ORDERSilk Road Train Leaves U.K. for ChinaApril 11 (EIRNS)—The train which arrived from Yiwu, China, in the U.K. in January, the first Silk Road train to reach the U.K., yesterday started its return trip, which will take 18 days while passing through seven countries (U.K., France, Germany, Poland, Belarus, Russia, Kazakhstan, and China). The train will need to change gauges three times on the trip. Greg Hands, the British Minister of State at the Department for International Trade, said, “The new rail link with China is another boost for global Britain, following the ancient Silk Road trade route.” He hopes there will be a weekly, or even daily, train on this route within the decade. SCIENCE AND INFRASTRUCTURERussian Cooperation Could Help Japan’s Ailing Nuclear IndustryApril 11 (EIRNS)—Japan and Russia will cooperate in nuclear energy on an array of fronts, including possible joint projects in third countries, including applications in nuclear medicine and in agriculture, research projects, such as fast reactors, and nuclear fuel supplies to Japan. The agreements resulted from Rosatom CEO Alexey Likachev’s visit to Japan. He told Rossiya-24 television on April 9 that, “An important subject that was in focus of the talks is possible consolidation of our assets and competencies with companies enjoying authority in the nuclear sphere, not only in Japan, but also abroad.” Such cooperation is strategically critical right now, as Japan’s nuclear industry is facing bankruptcy, due to the shutdown of its own plants and political fallout post-Fukushima, the lack of domestic orders for new plants, and delays and cost overruns at Toshiba/Westinghouse’s U.S. plants under construction. |
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