Volume 4, Number 154

EIR Daily Alert Service

P.O. Box 17390, Washington, DC 20041-0390

• Nothing Less Than Nuclear War Is At Stake in Coup against President Trump
• Congress Takes Aim against Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty
• Rep. Dana Rohrabacher Calls Attention to VIPS Memo ‘Denying Russian Hacking’
• Nunes Moving Against Obama Officials Who Violated U.S. Laws on Classified Information
• German Machine-Builders Denounce New U.S. Sanctions against Russia
• Attacks on Glass-Steagall Aimed At Trump Constituents
• Senator Schumer Leads Trade War against China
• Global Times Editorializes, ‘Tillerson’s North Korea Statement Shows Courage’
• Nuclear Power Is Vital for U.S. National Security, Say Senators Graham and Chambliss
• First High-Speed Rail in Inner Mongolia Opened Today
• Christie Commission Blames Doctors, not British Empire’s Dope, Inc., for Opioid Crisis

EDITORIAL

Nothing Less Than Nuclear War Is At Stake in Coup against President Trump

Aug. 3 (EIRNS)—The insanity of the overwhelming majority of the U.S. House and Senate in passing their bloodthirsty sanctions legislation last week, starkly demonstrated the truth of what Lyndon LaRouche has been saying for months: that if the British-orchestrated coup against President Trump succeeds, it will land us right in the middle of a nuclear war.  “People don’t know what these weapons systems can do,” he said today.  “The U.S. is marching to thermonuclear war.”

President Donald Trump tweeted today that “Our relationship with Russia is at an all-time and very dangerous low.  You can thank Congress….”  And in one of his two signing statements on this bill, the President said, “The Framers of our Constitution put foreign affairs in the hands of the President.  This bill will prove the wisdom of that choice…. I built a truly great company worth many billions of dollars. This is a big part of the reason I was elected.  As President, I can make far better deals with foreign countries than Congress.”  Lyndon LaRouche heartily concurred with all these statements.

None of our controlled media have thought it worthwhile to report that President Trump’s signing statement declared the most important parts of this bill to be unconstitutional, as indeed they are, mainly for the reason he gave above—and said that he would not enforce them.  Now it is up to the American people to give him the support to defeat the sedition against him, and prevent an otherwise imminent nuclear war.

Some ill-advised Russian leaders—but not President Vladimir Putin—are apparently ignorant of what is really going on in this country, and are making belligerent statements which are duly picked up and echoed from British-controlled U.S. media outlets, for the obvious purpose.  President Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov refused to comment on an ill-advised Facebook post by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.  President Putin himself has limited his own response to the statement that there is no reason at this point for Russia to introduce any additional counter-sanctions against the U.S.

The same controlled U.S. Congressmen responsible for the “sanctions” insanity, are pushing forward with even more extreme war provocations—just when you thought that was impossible! Politico reported yesterday that the version of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) which has already passed in the House of Representatives, as well as the one under consideration in the Senate, would actually force the Pentagon to violate the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty negotiated by President Ronald Reagan and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachov in 1987!

At the same time, the vast gulf between the British-run politicians and media and what American citizens think is growing, as LaRouche movement organizers are picking up signals of a mass-strike upwelling among Americans.

U.S. POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC

Congress Takes Aim against Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty

Aug. 3 (EIRNS)—The next phase of the treasonous Congressional attack on U.S.-Russia relations will be the INF Treaty, based on the so far unproven claim that Russia is in violation of the treaty by testing and deploying a ground-launched cruise missile that falls within the prohibited range of 500 to 5,000 km. The fiscal 2018 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which has passed the House and is under consideration in the Senate, directs the Defense Department to initiate development of a land-based cruise missile that violates the treaty. It would require the President to make a determination whether Russia has engaged in noncompliant activities, and if such determination is made, it would provide that the U.S. is no longer bound by the limitations of the treaty.

The White House already blasted that provision in the House bill in a July 12 statement, on grounds that it “unhelpfully ties the Administration to a specific missile system, which would limit potential military response options,” and it “would also raise concerns among NATO allies and could deprive the Administration of the flexibility to make judgments about the timing and nature of invoking our legal remedies under the treaty.”

The administration is not the only source concerned about these provisions on the INF treaty. “Now, as then, short- and medium-range nuclear missiles have no deterrent value, while making it more likely for miscalculations to lead to the unthinkable,” Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), who voted for ratification of the treaty in 1988, told Politico in a statement. Other experts consulted by Politico pointed to the NDAA’s obvious unconstitutionality. “It exceeds the power of Congress,” said Mallory Stewart, who served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of Arms Control, Verification and Compliance until earlier this year. “It is ignoring a division of power that has been recognized since the beginning of our Constitution.” Gen. Paul Selva, the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, otherwise a hawk on the question of Russian violations, questioned the military utility of such weapons during Congressional testimony in July. “Given the location of the specific missile and the deployment, they don’t gain any advantage in Europe,” Selva said. As for the lack of such a weapon in the U.S. arsenal, Selva argued that the U.S. military can hold at risk any targets it needs to with air- and ship-launched cruise missiles, which are not covered by the INF Treaty.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher Calls Attention to VIPS Memo ‘Denying Russian Hacking’

Aug. 3 (EIRNS)—Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) stepped forward today as the first member of the U.S. Congress to take up the memorandum issued by Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) exposing the British-pushed lie that “Russia hacked the U.S. elections.”

Citing the VIPS, a press release issued by his office reports that “Rep. Dana Rohrabacher today drew the attention of members of Congress to a report of ‘major significance in the debate over Russia’s involvement in the last election.’ The report, drawn up by intelligence community veterans, concluded that the so-called hacking of the Democratic National Committee before last year’s elections could not have been done by Russians, but was instead an inside job made to look like Moscow’s handiwork.”

Representative Rohrabacher, who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia, and Emerging Threats, is cited:

“The findings of these specialists destroy the credibility of the charges that Russia hacked the system, disclosed the emails, and thus greatly impacted the outcome of the last election. These bogus charges have done great damage to our ability to work with Russia and have distracted the American people from the real threat of radical Islamic terrorism. This phony campaign has been used to disrupt the right of our new President to accomplish his goals and set the policies approved by the American voters.”

Rohrabacher’s release was quickly given national and international attention through a Sputnik story headlined “U.S. Intel Report ‘Destroys Credibility’ of Russia Hacking Charges—Rohrabacher.” Sputnik International, the English-language coverage, had featured the July 24 VIPS memo itself yesterday, embedding a link to the memo in its story, and made reference to it again in a story today covering McCain’s lunatic attack against Trump’s signing statement on the Congressional Russian sanctions.

Coverage of the explosive VIPS memo continues to build in internationally. Yesterday, the well-read French website, Réseau International, posted the French translation of the July 25 LaRouche PAC press release on the VIPS memo from the website of LaRouche’s friends at Solidarité et Progrès. Today, the German website NachDenkSeiten ran the full text of the memorandum in German; and in Italy, two online journals, Il Fatto Quotidiano and Antimafia Duemila, ran an article on the memo from the blog of Italian journalist and politician, Giulietto Chiesa.

Nunes Moving Against Obama Officials Who Violated U.S. Laws on Classified Information

Aug. 3 (EIRNS)—House Intelligence Committee Chair Devin Nunes (R-CA) is on the warpath against senior Obama administration officials, who, in their zeal to crush the Trump campaign and Presidency, broke U.S. law in “unmasking” and then leaking to the press NSA-gathered intelligence on U.S. citizens. (“Unmasking” is the name given to a formal request to identify Americans in an intelligence document.)

Nunes wrote Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats on July 27, requesting technical assistance in drafting legislation to reform procedures for the unmasking of U.S. citizens’ names in intelligence reports. What is explosive about the letter, available on the Committee’s website, is its description of how senior Obama administration officials were given “easy access to U.S. person information,” which was then leaked to the media:

“For example, this Committee has learned that one official, whose position had no apparent intelligence related function, made hundreds of unmasking requests during the final year of the Obama administration”—emphasis in the original—and, “of those requests, only one offered a justification that was not boilerplate, and articulated why that specific official required the personal information for the performance of his or her official duties,” Nunes wrote. (Emphasis in original.)

The Hill reported, as did many media, that “sources familiar with the Nunes letter identified the official as then-UN Ambassador Samantha Power.”

Nunes’s letter elaborated: “The Committee also understands that Obama-era officials sought the identities of Trump transition officials within intelligence reports. However, there was no meaningful explanation offered by these officials as to why they needed or how they would use this U.S. person information…. More pointedly, some of the requests for unminimized U.S. person information were followed by anonymous leaks of those names to the media.”

This not a matter of minor misdemeanors. As Nunes’s letter notes: “Unauthorized disclosures, whether the result of disgruntled employees or for the advancement of partisan political ideology are crimes…. All leaks of classified information must be vigorously prosecuted.”

On Aug. 1, Nunes followed up with a letter to National Security Agency chief Adm. Michael Rogers, requesting information on the total number of “unmasking” requests made by Ben Rhodes, Obama’s Deputy National Security Advisor, in the 13 months preceding President Trump’s inauguration. According to Fox News, Nunes’s letter asks for documents on Rhodes be sent by Aug. 21.

The naming of Rhodes brings the number of top Obama officials under investigation by the House Intelligence Committee to four, with former National Security Advisor Susan Rice and CIA Director John Brennan, being the other two besides Rhodes and Power fingered as mass “unmaskers.”

COLLAPSING WESTERN FINANCIAL SYSTEM

German Machine-Builders Denounce New U.S. Sanctions against Russia

Aug. 3 (EIRNS)—The Mechanical Engineering Industry Association (VDMA) machine-builders association, has written a letter to the federal government of Chancellor Angela Merkel, urging it to defend German economic interests against the threat of U.S. sanctions: “The government must draw a clear red line here.” Informing the press about the letter, Ulrich Ackermann, head of the VDMA’s Foreign Trade Department, said in Frankfurt this afternoon, “The Americans are applying their law against third parties, which is against international law.”

Producers of pipe-laying equipment and of pumps, as well as construction machines, could be affected by the sanctions, Ackermann said, warning at the same time against a freeze of credit-lines by the banks for any businesses with Russia, for fear of being hit by U.S. sanctions: “This would aggravate the financing of exports which is already difficult enough. Russia must not become a second Iran.”

Attacks on Glass-Steagall Aimed At Trump Constituents

Aug. 3 (EIRNS)—Over the last several days, media attacks on the Glass-Steagall Act have escalated.  The arguments by the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) have been very prominent in this assault.  Rather than simply making the claim that the too-big-to-fail banks must be protected at the expense of our entire economy, as Barney Frank, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton did, CEI has targetted a conservative populist constituency that would likely support Donald Trump who said during the campaign that he would re-instate the Glass-Steagall Act, first signed in 1933 by FDR.

They claim that Glass-Steagall hurts “Main Street” more than “Wall Street,” arguing that the smaller commercial banks can’t possibly survive by investing in real economic activity, but must be permitted the wild speculative excesses of Wall Street investment banks to survive.

CEI articles and similar arguments have been carried in Investors Business Daily (Aug. 2), Insight Factset (Aug. 2), Freedom Works (Aug. 1), and Libertarian—Before It’s News, on Aug. 2.

On the other side, the American Banker ran an article supporting Glass-Steagall on Aug. 2, and the Lowell Sun (Massachusetts) carried a letter from Arleen Martino on Aug. 2, proposing Glass-Steagall as the alternative to the disastrous Congressional sanctions bill.

Senator Schumer Leads Trade War against China

Aug. 3 (EIRNS)—Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) unveiled the Democratic Party’s alleged “Better Deal” on trade policy today. Rather than joining with the world’s leader in high-technology economic growth, China, Schumer and company have demanded a trade war that the United States cannot win and that would open the way, in short order, for global nuclear war.  Rather than agree to the growth policies elaborated by Lyndon and Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Schumer and company have opted to remain loyal to Wall Street and send the world into an unstoppable spiral of destruction.

Having achieved total economic stagnation for the United States, Schumer and friends claim to be protecting U.S. workers from the threat that the world’s fastest growing economy, China, which has employed people in new factories and infrastructure projects throughout Eurasia and Africa, will use trade relations to steal U.S. jobs and industrial secrets.  They do not explain how the Democratic Party, which leaked its own campaign emails by the tens of thousands, will secure U.S. commercial secrets, but they are proposing an international trade prosecutor to investigate and prosecute individuals and corporations in other nations.

Those who would fall for Schumer’s destructive insanity deserve the horrible results that he intends.

STRATEGIC WAR DANGER

Global Times Editorializes, ‘Tillerson’s North Korea Statement Shows Courage’

Aug. 3 (EIRNS)—The Communist Party of China’s English-language daily Global Times carries an editorial today under the above title, praising U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s direct statement to North Korea that the United States does not seek to overthrow the government nor conduct military actions against North Korea, and writes, “Tillerson’s words are in contradiction to the increasingly harsh rhetoric against Pyongyang from U.S. authorities.” It then quotes Sen. Lindsey Graham’s rant that Trump is ready for war on North Korea.

The editorial states: “Many Americans would think Tillerson is showing weakness, but we see his statement as the most courageous expression from Washington regarding the Korean Peninsula issue.”

The editorial notes that the threats from the U.S. over the years are now “outdated” and “no longer effective,” but still “Washington refuses to adjust its policies.” They reject the claim that increased Chinese sanctions on the North would solve anything, and call on Washington to “leave some alternatives for Pyongyang and make it believe that abandoning its nuclear and missile programs will do more good than insisting on this path.” Otherwise, they conclude, “As long as confrontation between North Korea and the U.S. exists, Pyongyang will not change its course on developing nuclear weapons and intercontinental ballistic missiles. The denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula is the common wish of many countries. Political courage is required if they are to stick to this goal.”

In stark contrast, today’s Wall Street Journal editorializes on “Tillerson’s Korea Confusion,” arguing that the Secretary is being beguiled by China and undermining the need for “regime change.” The Journal also runs an op-ed by madman John Bolton, George W. Bush’s UN Ambassador saying “Some sort of strike is likely unavoidable unless China agrees to regime change in Pyongyang.”

SCIENCE AND INFRASTRUCTURE

Nuclear Power Is Vital for U.S. National Security, Say Senators Graham and Chambliss

Aug. 3 (EIRNS)—Following the decision by South Carolina Electric & Gas Company to cease construction of two new nuclear units at the V.C. Summer Nuclear Station in Jenkinsville, South Carolina, and the statement by utility Southern Co. saying the overall costs for its Vogtle Electric Generating Plants unit 3 and unit 4 nuclear plants, built near Waynesboro, Georgia, have risen from the estimated $14 billion in 2008 to at least $25.2 billion, Senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) have penned an article for the Fox News website, saying that “the United States must demonstrate its commitment to our national security by investing in the completion of domestic reactors. Anything less, risks squandering our technology legacy, with a corresponding loss of commercial success and global influence.”

The Senators put a point on how China is building what the U.S. has not:

“The good news: This summer, fuel will be loaded into the first of four nuclear plants, reactors that are the first of a new generation of technology. These advanced reactors are an engineering marvel, bringing simpler, safer, and more reliable clean energy to many places around the world. The plants are a triumph of American design.

“The not-so-good news: The reactors are in Shandong and Zhejiang, provinces of China. Meanwhile four similar advanced reactors, in Georgia and South Carolina, struggle to reach completion due to serious cost overruns and construction delays.”

“What is at stake here is not just the health of the power grid in the southeastern United States, or the 12,000 jobs at the U.S. projects, but a demonstration of our ability to strengthen national security and solidify the United States’ role as an energy technology exporter.”

At length, they pointed out that the United States, the pioneers in nuclear power generation technology, no longer possesses the capability to export nuclear power reactors abroad. That capability now belongs to China, Russia and South Korea.

Citing Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross that “having a nuclear-power capability is obviously a matter of national security,” the Senators concluded, saying “he’s right, and we therefore need to ensure America’s nuclear energy capability remains the best in the world.”

First High-Speed Rail in Inner Mongolia Opened Today

Aug. 3 (EIRNS)—The first high-speed railway in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region started operations today, linking Hohhot and Ulanqab. The 126-km railway is part of the high-speed rail network that links Hohhot to Zhangjiakou in Hebei Province, the co-host city, with Beijing, of the 2022 Olympic Winter Games. The travel time between Ulanqab and Hohhot will be shortened to 40 minutes.

China is now constructing a high-speed rail connection from Zhangjiakou to Beijing, under the Great Wall, which will therefore connect Hohhot with the capital via high-speed rail, as reported in yesterday’s Alert.

OTHER

Christie Commission Blames Doctors, not British Empire’s Dope, Inc., for Opioid Crisis

Aug. 2 (EIRNS)—The Commission on Combatting Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis, mandated by President Trump and headed by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, has produced a preliminary report on the drug epidemic sweeping the United States which is an insult to every family affected by the drug crisis, and in fact to every thinking American. The only useful thing that the entire report says is that it calls on President Trump to “declare a national emergency,” because the opioid crisis has spun out of control and is killing Americans at record rates. The Christie report otherwise utterly misdiagnoses the problem, and then presents a series of proposed measures, all of which are preposterous and useless, at best. The outlook is entirely that of George Soros’s “harm-reduction” paradigm, which is nothing but a cover for legalizing drugs.

Its biggest lie is that “this crisis began in our nation’s health care system,” with doctors over-prescribing opioid pain-killers, and asserts that “the overwhelming percentage” of that over-prescription “is due to a lack of education on these issues in our nation’s medical and dental schools.”

The Commission’s proposals, ranging from better “educating” doctors, to expanding “Medication-Assisted Treatment” (e.g., changing the addiction to methadone), are based on the premise that the drug epidemic cannot be stopped, so we should learn to live with it.

To grasp the enormity of the crime which this report represents, we reprise here the approach that Lyndon LaRouche has advocated for over three decades, which would destroy not only the opioid epidemic, but the British Empire’s entire Dope, Inc. apparatus.

The correct approach begins by recognizing that the explosion of opioid consumption and deaths, as of heroin consumption and deaths, is a result of the intentional policy of the British Empire to launch a New Opium War against consumer and producer nations alike. The prices of heroin and opioids have fallen dramatically as part of a deliberate marketing strategy by Dope, Inc., much in the same way that they pushed crack cocaine addiction in the U.S. under George H.W. Bush, by sharply cutting its price. Then:

1) Reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act, which would bankrupt the entire Dope, Inc. financial apparatus which runs the City of London and Wall Street.

2) Jail at least a large, representative group of top bankers involved in financing and promoting the drug trade. As Lyndon LaRouche put it in his March 13, 1985 fifteen-point program for a war on drugs: “Special attention should be concentrated on those banks, insurance enterprises, and other business institutions which are in fact elements of an international financial cartel coordinating the flow of hundreds of billions annually of revenues from the international drug-traffic. Such entities should be classed as outlaws according to the ‘crimes against humanity’ doctrine elaborated at the postwar Nuremberg Tribunal.”

3) Use available advanced satellite detection and other technologies to identify and eradicate the major marijuana, coca and poppy fields globally (it is estimated that existing technologies would permit a 90% success rate).

4) Use available advanced technologies, including those similar to medical MRI imaging, to detect, interdict, and seize shipments of those same three drug groups, as well as synthetics such as methamphetamines. (It is estimated that this would permit a 75% success rate on the remaining 10% of drug production that gets past the eradication stage. This would leave only 2-3% of total initial drug production to be addressed.)

5) Provide a viable economic livelihood outside the drug trade, and a meaningful future and sense of purpose for youth especially, in both the consuming and producing countries, by launching a global industrial renaissance in consonance with China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

6) Replace the ugly and satanic drug-rock-sex counterculture with Classical cultural forms worthy of human dignity.