EIR Daily Alert Service, TUESDAY, APRIL 17, 2018

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EDITORIAL

The Missiles Were Launched by British Lies; Demand London Answer

April 16 (EIRNS)- The President of France foolishly bragged, in a national television interview Sunday, that he, along with British Prime Minister Theresa May, convinced President Trump to reverse his own policy and keep U.S. forces in Syria “for the long-term.” This outrageous statement means the U.K. and France are demanding, not just another endless Mideast war from the United States, but a steadily escalating confrontation with Russia, and with China.

As one of Britain’s own former diplomats said in London yesterday, “That way lies madness.” Hamlet spoke with scorn of nations waging war over a plot of land too small to hold one of their battles. Here nations are being dragged toward a thermonuclear world war, over events that did not happen.

The evidence: The March poisoning, or intoxication with chemicals, of former Russian double-agent Sergei Skripal in Salisbury, England, was furiously blamed on Russia by May’s government; but the British fabrications about this event are now collapsing.

In a huge confrontation, “Ms. Mayhem” demanded and got expulsions of hundreds of Russian diplomats by the United States and EU countries.

But Spiez Laboratory, the Swiss Federal Institute for NBC-Protection, one of the top five chemical weapons laboratories designated by the Organization for Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), found that the Skripal father and daughter were poisoned by a non-lethal drug developed in the U.K. and United States for NATO military forces 50 years ago. That explains why they recovered! But it does not explain why samples the British government gave the OPCW, also contained a deadly nerve agent of a type developed in the old Soviet Union—in a concentration which would have killed the Skripals very quickly.

London must explain this; and it must answer whether it is pressuring the OPCW not to release the findings of one its five most trusted labs.

A Syrian government chemical weapons attack in Douma did not occur, as Marine combat veteran and later attorney with the Army Judge Advocate General, Virginia State Senator Richard Black explained in an April 12 LaRouche PAC interview which has spread through the Internet. The Barzeh scientific laboratory just destroyed by U.S./British/French missiles had been found twice last year—as recently as November 2017—to be completely free of chemical weapons activity, according to OPCW reports one month ago, and again two weeks ago!

British intelligence, Prime Minister Theresa May, and Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson must explain this.

Helga Zepp-LaRouche said today the U.S. Congress, parliaments in Europe, must demand explanations; world war is potentially at stake. Immediately, the British are giving the jihadis and terrorist groups in Syria the whip hand, to command new cruise missile attacks on Syria by staging “chemical attacks.”

The “Steele dossier” produced by senior agents of British MI6, aka the Secret Intelligence Service, has been the fraudulent basis for an intense drive to force President Trump to accept British geopolitical policy and confront Putin and China—and then impeach him.

These are hoaxes, the kind of lying intelligence by which Tony Blair’s British government pushed the United States into the Iraq War, and by which British intelligence a century ago prepared the way for World War I.

May and Macron have overexposed themselves. The United States need not be an eternal sucker which goes to war for British lies. Most American veterans of the Gulf Wars, for example, know or strongly suspect that Trump is being fooled by “false flag” attacks. He is being fooled into war by the same circles that want him impeached.

Trump planned to withdraw U.S. forces from Syria; America’s economy urgently needs development, new infrastructure, new technologies. And it needs a link to China’s Belt and Road Initiative projects, and a link to China’s capital.

STRATEGIC WAR DANGER

China’s Global Times Assesses Growing World War Threat

April 16 (EIRNS)—After China voted for the Russian UN Security Council resolution condemning the NATO attack on Syria, its Global Times ran a lead editorial April 15 which warned of world war by an aggressive miscalculation over Russia from NATO and the United States. The editorial also firmly declared the Douma, Syria chemical weapons attack a deception.

“It has not been confirmed if the chemical weapons attack happened,” the paper wrote, “or if it did, whether government forces or opposition forces launched it. International organizations have not carried out any authoritative investigation. The Syrian government has repeatedly stressed that there is no need for it to use chemical weapons to capture the opposition-controlled Douma city and the use of chemical weapons has provided an excuse for Western intervention. The Syrian government’s argument or Trump’s accusations against the ‘evil’ Assad regime, which one is in line with basic logic? The answer is quite obvious.

“The U.S. has a record of launching wars on deceptive grounds,” Global Times stated, pointing to the Iraq War example.

It then became still more serious. “Washington’s attack on Syria, where Russian troops are stationed, constitutes serious contempt for Russia’s military capabilities and political dignity…. Disturbingly, Washington seems to have become addicted to mocking Russia in this way. Russia is capable of launching a destructive retaliatory attack on the West. Russia’s weak economy is plagued by Western sanctions and squeezing of its strategic space. That the West provokes Russia in such a manner is irresponsible for world peace.

“The situation is still fomenting. The Trump administration said it will sustain the strikes. But how long will the military action continue and whether Russia will fight back as it claimed previously, remain uncertain. Western countries continue bullying Russia but are seemingly not afraid of its possible counterattack. Their arrogance breeds risk and danger.”

Former British Diplomat Blasts May’s Legal Rationale on Syria War

April 16 (EIRNS)—Former British diplomat Craig Murray, in a blog posting dated April 15, attacked Prime Minister Theresa May’s legal rationale for the April 13-14 missile strikes on Syria as without any merit.

“It specifically claims as customary international law practices which are rejected by a large majority of states and therefore cannot be customary international law,” Murray wrote. “It does not quote the UN Charter, any Security Council Resolution or any international treaty or agreement of any kind which justifies this action,” Murray writes. “This is because there is absolutely nothing which can be quoted—all the relevant texts say that an attack on another state is illegal without authorization of the UN Security Council under Chapter VII of the UN Charter.”

The government argument “is a classic statement of the doctrine of ‘liberal intervention,’ which is of course the mantra adopted by neo-conservatives over the last 30 years to justify resource grabs. It is not in any way accepted as customary international law. It is a doctrine opposed by a very large number of states, and certainly by the great majority of African, South American and Asian states.”

The day before, Murray pointed out that May had tied the Syria strikes to the Skripal affair. “I don’t think the motive for a Skripal ‘false flag’ could be more starkly demonstrated,” he says.

And he concludes, “The danger is that they will not stop but continue to push, testing how far they can go in weakening Syrian government forces to promote their jihadist allies on the ground, before they spark a real Russian reaction. That way madness lies.”

Labour Leader Corbyn Argues May Should Make No Strikes without Parliament’s Approval

April 16 (EIRNS)—U.K. Labour Party Leader Jeremy Corbyn caused an uproar in London, today, with his criticism of Prime Minister Theresa May’s decision to participate in missile strikes in Syria without going to the Parliament first during debate in the House of Commons today. “The Prime Minister is accountable to this Parliament not to the whims of the U.S. President,” he said, over jeering from Conservative MPs. “We clearly need a War Powers Act in this country to transform a now broken convention into a legal obligation.” Corbyn described the strikes as “legally questionable” and argued that diplomatic efforts to end the war in Syria should be renewed. Corbyn also pointed out that there was still no confirmation that the Bashar al-Assad government was responsible for the (alleged) chemical weapons attack in Douma and said inspectors from The Hague-based Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) should be “allowed to do their work.” “While suspicion, rightly, points to the Assad government, chemical weapons have been used by other groups in the conflict,” he said.

Prior to the debate, Labour released a five-page legal opinion questioning the government’s legal rationale for the attacks. Dapo Akande, professor of public international law and co-director of the Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict, concluded that the government’s position was “significantly flawed,” reported the Guardian. Akande argued that neither the United Nations Charter nor international law permitted military action on the basis of “humanitarian intervention.” He also suggested that accepting the U.K.’s position on the use of force would undermine the UN Charter.

SCIENCE AND INFRASTRUCTURE

British Novichok Poisoning Hoax of Skripals Exposed by Swiss Lab

April 16 (EIRNS)—The British lie that Russia carried out an attempted assassination of the former Russian agent turned British double-agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, on March 4, has exploded over the weekend, with the revelation by an OPCW-designated laboratory in Spiez, Switzerland, that the poison used on the Skripals is actually one invented by Hoffman LaRoche in 1951 and used only by NATO countries, but never developed by Russia!

The Associated Press broke the story on April 14, followed with more details by Dr. Andrea Galli in Modern Diplomacy on April 15; TASS reported it April 14.

The Swiss Institute for NBC-Protection of nuclear, biological, chemical weapons in Spiez is a world-renowned Swiss government-run center of excellence in WMD forensic analysis. It analyzed the substance found at Salisbury at the request of the OPCW. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said he received confidential results from this laboratory; OPCW has not reported them yet.

According to Galli, in his article, “Swiss Governmental Lab Identifies the Substance Used on the Skripal Case as Being Linked to NATO?”  that Swiss lab reported “the poison found at Salisbury by OPCW investigators looking into the Skripal affair, there are traces of the toxic agent 3-Quinuclidinyl Benzilate [BZ] and traces of A-234—one of the nerve agents of the novichok group—in its original form and in a concentration that would have killed the Skripals, not explaining the clinical picture of the Skripals. However, the presence of 3-Quinuclidinyl Benzilate explains the clinical picture of the Skripals.”

3-Quinuclidiny benzilate was developed and weaponized in the 1960s as a new chemical agent for battlefield use as a psychochemical, and assigned the NATO code agent BZ. It is a nerve-poisoning agent and a chemical weapon that is non-lethal but causes a wide array of potentially incapacitating symptoms in its victims: soldiers can become disoriented or even experience hallucinations, Dr. Galli wrote.

“Less than 1 mg of BZ takes 30-60 minutes to act and can produce acute brain syndrome, characterized by delirium lasting for 3-5 days, which can be reversed by physostigmine and other anticholinesterases.” It is a psychotomimetic agent, which is a class of chemicals which consistently produced changes in thought, perception and mood, such as LSD, the best known of these agents, Galli explained.

On the evening of April 15, an interesting exchange took place on Twitter. First, the lab in Spiez, Switzerland, which had made no comment, itself, wrote that it “had no doubt that Porton Down had identified Novichok.” But another expert tweeted back: “You’re in the best position to say what your findings were. Answering that you agree PD had identified Novichok is like answering a question with a riddle. What the world needs is straightforwardness.” And @SpiezLab replied, “No, we are not in the best position. The OPCW rejected the Russian demands to publicize the designated labs involved. Wait for the meeting of the OPCW Executive Council on April 18.”

So the possibility of OPCW withholding the Spiez lab results is circumspectly raised.

The Skripals’ symptoms match those of BZ: 30-60 minutes to take effect matches the report that they went to lunch and that witnesses, who saw them there and on the park bench, said they appeared to be suffering from hallucinations.

Lavrov, in the AP report April 14, pointed out that “the Swiss lab also pointed to the presence of the nerve agent A234, [novichok] in the samples, but added that its presence appeared strange, given the substance’s high volatility and the relatively long period between the poisoning and the sample-taking.”

TASS quoted Lavrov as saying, “We are asking the OPCW a question: Why was the information that would reflect conclusions of the experts from the laboratory in the city of Spiez omitted in the final report?”

OPCW Reports: Syria Complies with the Chemical Weapons Treaty

April 16 (EIRNS)—A review of two very recent reports released by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) shows that, despite the outrageous claims being made by the U.S., British, and French governments, the government of Syria is in compliance with its obligations.

On March 13, the OPCW director general issued a report to its executive council covering the broad range of matters being addressed by the organization. In the section of the document on Syria, the director general reported that on Nov. 17, 2017, investigators conducted a round of inspections at the Scientific Studies and Research Center (SSRC) facilities of Barzeh and Jamrayah for the second time—Barzeh is the facility outside of Damascus that was targeted by the bulk of U.S. cruise missiles launched into Syria on the morning of April 14. Joint Staff Director Lt. Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie told reporters at the Pentagon hours after the strikes, that the destruction of the Barzeh facility (supposedly) crippled Syria’s chemical weapons program. In February, samples collected at these two facilities were sent to two designated labs for analysis. On Feb. 23, however, the inspectors “did not observe any activities inconsistent with obligations under the [Chemical Weapons] Convention.”

A March 23 report on the status of Syria’s declarations under the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), states, “The analysis of samples taken during the inspections did not indicate the presence of scheduled chemicals in the samples, and the inspection team did not observe any activities inconsistent with obligations under the Convention during the second round of inspections at the Barzeh and Jamrayah facilities.”

This is something that U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May needs to be asked to explain, particularly as Russia is demanding to know why the Swiss Spiez lab’s report on the Skripal poisoning has not been released. Does May consider Her Majesty’s government, and not the international treaty organization OPCW, the final authority on charges of chemical weapons use?

U.S. POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC

France’s President Claims He Won Trump to British Syria Policy

April 16 (EIRNS)—The Times of London celebrated prematurely this morning, “Donald Trump will keep U.S. forces in Syria long term after being persuaded to do so by President Macron, the French leader said last night. Mr. Macron claimed credit for swaying the views of the U.S. president, who had said this month that he wanted to pull American troops out of the country, where about 2,000 mostly special forces are fighting ISIS. ‘Ten days ago, President Trump was saying that the United States would disengage from Syria. We convinced him that it was necessary to stay there long-term,’ said Macron, in an outrageous, nationally televised Sunday interview, which must have aroused envy even in the vainglorious ex-FBI Director James Comey.

By “we,” Macron meant himself and British Prime Minister Theresa May; and “Mr. Macron suggested on television that it was thanks to his influence that the bombardment was limited to these sites.” Foolishly, Macron does not realize that the “long-term” occupation in Syria he claimed he had sold to Trump, was a step leading toward war with Russia.

On Monday, however, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders corrected Macron, saying, “The American mission has not changed. The President stated clearly that he wants American forces to come back as soon as possible.” Trump, himself, repeated this later in the day.

Macron is on a media spree to try to convince the French population of the need for his liberal austerity policies, and that he is not the “President of the rich,” which, in fact, he is. The exchange on Syria was the first question raised by the journalists interviewing him. While claiming not to be after “regime-change” in Syria—Britain’s policy—Macron said that, following the missile strikes, the moment had come for discussion of a diplomatic solution in Syria. And who to conduct it—France and Britain.

Indeed, French UN Ambassador François Delattre, at the UN Security Council April 14, said that France and Britain would be introducing a resolution for a negotiated Syrian solution.

Jacques Cheminade, French political leader and friend of Lyndon LaRouche, spoke to RT France’s 20:30 news program on April 14. “They say limited strikes,” said Cheminade. “The reality, however, is the strategic escalation which is behind this. You have to look at the situation internationally, a situation where Anglo-American forces are pushing for confrontation in the world, because their financial and monetary system is threatened to collapse at any moment.”

Like May, who recommends in her recent speeches that, after talking tough to President Putin, one must engage with him, Macron stressed the need to “talk to everyone” in pursuing a Syrian settlement, and said his plans to visit Moscow and St. Petersburg in May remain unchanged.

THE NEW GLOBAL ECONOMIC ORDER

U.S. Should Take a New Approach to China Relations, Fu Ying Says

April 16 (EIRNS)—Speaking at the Penn Wharton China Summit, Mme. Fu Ying, the vice chairperson of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National People’s Congress, said that “the world stage needs a new script and should go beyond the traditional mind-set of power politics and adopt a new approach to U.S.-China relations.”

This is the 40th anniversary of the reform and opening up, she said, “and the U.S.-China relationship has also witnessed profound changes. Today more than 300,000 students from China’s mainland are studying at U.S. universities and nearly 3 million Chinese tourists travel to the United States every year. Both sides have benefitted from their cooperation,” Fu Ying said, although now the United States is labeling China as a strategic competitor that is presumably challenging America, and the United States is now threatening tough trade measures against China, further straining the relationship.

“China is getting closer to the world’s center stage, which has never been empty,” she said. “For centuries, different shows with the same old script have been performed here. The old script is mostly about power struggles, which have not left mankind with good memories.”

The world stage needs “a new script,” Fu said. “The new generation should be able to go beyond the traditional mindset of power politics and take a new approach.” She spoke of the April 10 keynote by President Xi Jinping at the April 8-11 Boao Forum, in which he confirmed that China would be opening up even more to the world. “China and the U.S. have been important partners to each other over the years,” she said. “It is in the interest of both sides to maintain this partnership and find mutually acceptable solutions to differences. We stand to gain working together. We would both lose should we enter into confrontation, be it for trade or for any other matters.”

It should be noted that Xi Jinping’s keynote at the Boao Forum for Asia was re-broadcast today on C-Span: https://www.c-span.org/video/?443771-1/chinese-president-xi-delivers-remarks-countrys-development.)

COLLAPSING WESTERN FINANCIAL SYSTEM

European Central Bank Seeing Trouble at Deutsche Bank

April 16 (EIRNS)—Germany’s Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper for April 16 reported that the European Central Bank (ECB) has asked that Deutsche Bank simulate what a “crisis scenario” would look like, and what it would cost to complete a “resolution” of its own investment banking division.

Deutsche Bank, now largely run from London, is one of Europe’s largest banks and has had the largest financial derivatives exposure of any bank. Its investment bank has lost money for the past three years, and its British CEO, John Cryan, is being replaced.

Süddeutsche Zeitung says this is the first time that the ECB supervisory authority has demanded such a measure from a major bank. “According to the report, banking regulators want to know what the impact would be on the value of Deutsche Bank’s capital market and derivatives business if, as a solvent bank, it had to simulate an abrupt end to new business.”

Deutsche Bank itself apparently told European financial journalists that the ECB would soon require such crisis scenarios from other major banks in Europe. Whether that is true, or self-defense, it is clear the ECB is worried about bank trouble. Banks in the United States and Europe are reporting large earnings and projecting a serene picture, while economic growth is extremely low—they were doing the same thing in 2007 before the last crash.

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