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This editorial appears in the April 21, 2016 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.

British Stand Exposed as Source of the War Drive: Their Meddling Must End!

[Print version of this editorial]

April 14—In the face of an ongoing deluge of lies and disinformation about Russia, coming from the institutions of the British Empire and its pathetic mouthpieces, there are two points of emphasis which must not be forgotten: first, that the City of London and Wall Street, the centers of power of the Empire, are hopelessly bankrupt, and are willing to risk thermonuclear war to maintain their global dominance; and second, that the great fear of those running the collapsing empire comes from the emergence of a New Paradigm, which rejects their geopolitical manipulations, and is based instead on cooperation between the United States, on the one side, and Russia and China on the other. The potential for realizing this New Paradigm has increased since the election of President Trump, with his promise to reverse the policy of regime change wars launched by his predecessors, Bush and Obama.

It is this potential which has been the target of the British-directed campaign against Trump, in first accusing him of being a de facto agent under the control of Putin, and then delivering fake intelligence to him, which convinced him to order a cruise missile strike against the Shayrat air base in Syria.

These two points were highlighted in an exchange between British UN Ambassador Matthew Rycroft, and Russia’s Acting Ambassador Vladimir Safronkov, during the United Nations Security Council debate on April 12, on yet another British sponsored resolution condemning the Assad government in Syria. Rycroft launched a vitriolic diatribe against Russia, blaming Russia for the deaths of Syrian civilians from chemical weapons, due to its continued support for Assad.

Safronkov responded sharply: “What you are afraid of is that we [Russia] might work with the United States. That’s what you lose sleep over.” He continued, saying the United Kingdom is more focused on regime change than in aiding the Syrian people, and instead “invite illegal armed groups to London.” The latter point is a clear reference to British support for groups such as the “White Helmets,” a phony aid group infiltrated by jihadists terrorists, which was the main source for the allegations that it was Assad’s forces which used chemical weapons which killed civilians in Khan Shaykhun.

In his denunciation of the Queen’s representative at the UN, Safronkov correctly identified the British as the instigator of the crisis that put the world on the edge of nuclear war. In doing so, he echoed U.S. statesman Lyndon LaRouche who warned U.S. President Trump that he must break out of the trap set by the British, by meeting immediately with Russian President Putin to reverse the march toward war. LaRouche reminded Trump that the British have been the enemy of this nation since its beginnings, and have repeatedly engaged in efforts to sabotage the American System of economics, which Trump has been championing.

“The British Empire has been the enemy of mankind for a long time,” LaRouche said, “Shut down the British System! The U.S. is a nation—always has been a nation... so we must not submit.” He added that Trump must clean out the nest of British advocates of confrontation with Russia who are responsible for pushing the false reports of Assad’s responsibility for using chemical weapons. But, above all, he must meet with Putin as soon as possible.

Tillerson-Putin Meeting

A major step in this direction occurred on April 12, when U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson met in Moscow with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, and then with President Putin. An attempt to sabotage that meeting had been undertaken by Britain’s Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, who demanded that the G7 foreign ministers, meeting in Italy, demand new sanctions against Russia, claiming Russian complicity in the alleged Syrian chemical weapons attack. Johnson intended that Tillerson use the scheduled meeting in Moscow to deliver an ultimatum to the Russians, that they would face new, tougher sanctions, unless they dropped support for Assad.

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U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

This ploy was thwarted by a rare show of good sense, as several European governments, including Germany and Italy, joined with Japan in rejecting Johnson’s demand. Instead, they demanded a full UN investigation to determine the facts about the chemical weapons incident.

Reports from the Tillerson-Lavrov meeting, and the later meeting with Putin, indicate that, despite some tough language from both sides, progress was made in the discussions. While acknowledging that differences between the two nations exist, a “working group” will be established, to address those differences, and that the memorandum on de-confliction, to avoid possible inadvertent attacks on each others’ forces in the region—which had been suspended by Russia after the U.S. missile attack—would likely be restored.

In his comments, Lavrov spoke of the “shared responsibility” of the two nations, and added, “We understand each other better after today’s talks.” He said the U.S. and Russia “are not worlds apart” on many key issues, but reviewed Russian concerns over recent U.S. and NATO interventions, including in Yugoslavia and Libya. He reiterated Russia’s contention that the U.S. has presented “no proof” of Assad’s responsibility for the chemical attack, and reminded Tillerson that there must be a “presumption of innocence” until a full investigation has been conducted.

While Tillerson stuck to the story that there is “conclusive” evidence of Assad’s guilt, he stated that the “low level of trust between our two countries” is a problem, and that the “world’s two foremost nuclear powers cannot have this kind of relationship... We need to attempt to put an end to this steady degradation.” He added that the two-hour meeting with Putin was “productive.”

It is worth noting that, prior to the British efforts to blame Assad for the chemical weapon attack, Tillerson had stated that the U.S. no longer was committed to regime change in Syria, which had been a key part of Trump’s pledge, during the campaign— to put an end to the regime change wars of Bush and Obama.

For his part, Trump seems to have stepped back from the confrontation the British intended to provoke, despite continuing efforts by the neocons to escalate, including reviving the plan to move 150,000 U.S. troops into Syria. Asked about the possibility of escalating against Assad, the President told Fox Business News, “Are we going to get involved in Syria? No.” And following the Tillerson meetings in Moscow, he tweeted, “Things will work out fine between the USA and Russia.”

Must Take on the Brits

Despite such sentiments, there can be no secure peace without going after the British instigators of the anti-Trump, anti-Russian operations, as they will not stop until Trump is either completely submissive to their intentions, or ousted. This news service has documented the role of British intelligence in directing the anti-Trump campaign. Among the more obvious lies is its authorship of the charge that the Russians control Trump through sexual blackmail—the notorious dossier produced by “former” MI6 operative Christopher Steele, in collaboration with Trump’s enemies in the Republican Party, the Clinton campaign, and the FBI. Despite the near-universal recognition of that dossier being a complete fraud, there are still efforts by the media, and by Congressmen from both parties, to bring Steele before Congressional committees to testify.

Additional new evidence has been forthcoming of the overall role of the British in targeting Trump. On April 13, the Guardian confirms that the GCHQ, the coordinating center of British intelligence, began investigating “suspicious ‘interactions’ between figures connected to Trump and known or suspected Russian agents,” that they picked up from surveillance in the summer of 2015, then passed on to U.S. intelligence agencies. In the summer of 2016, the head of GCHQ, Robert Hannigan, delivered material directly to CIA Director and Obama intimate John Brennan, who used it “to launch a major inter-agency investigation.” That investigation, or rather witch-hunt, is continuing, with the aim of destroying the Trump presidency.

Another example is an April 13 article in the Daily Mail, which says that former MI6 chief Sir Richard Dearlove “suggests,” without offering any evidence, that Trump received money from Russians in 2008. Sir Richard was head of MI6 in 2002, when his agency produced the dossier which asserted that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. He personally wrote the forward to the dossier, in which he stated that the threat from Saddam “was beyond doubt.” He then delivered the dossier to Tony Blair, who joined with George W. Bush in using this lying dossier to justify the invasion of Iraq, which triggered the broader regional war and terrorist recruitment which threatens the world today.

In addition to Russian Acting UN Ambassador Safronkov’s direct identification of the British role in concocting the Syrian provocation, the former British Ambassador to Syria, Peter Ford, stunned a BBC interviewer by saying he did not believe the so-called intelligence that led to Trump’s attack. The Daily Mail reported on this interview on April 11, under the headline, “Truth Bomb Dropped Live on BBC by British Ambassador Goes Viral.” When challenged by the BBC interviewer, who asked of the charges against Assad, “That’s a statement of fact, right?,” Ford calmly replied, “It’s a myth....It’s a statement of non-fact.”

He said that, in the run-up to the Iraq war, “The experts... were convinced that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction.... They were all wrong. It’s possible that they are wrong in this instance as well. That they are just looking for a pretext to attack Syria.” He called the chemical weapons attack a “fake flag” that may have been done by the terrorists, to lead to an escalation against Assad, and warned that the terrorists may launch another chemical weapons attack, to provoke further retaliation.

There is a growing number of individuals and institutions coming forward to challenge the Assad-did-it line. Among the most significant is weapons expert Ted Postol, who issued a 14-page report to thoroughly refute the four-page dossier released by the White House that claims to prove Assad’s responsibility. Postol concludes that the White House report “does not provide any evidence whatsoever that the U.S. government has concrete knowledge” of the government of Syria’s responsibility for the attack.

Another significant statement against the lurch toward war comes from the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), in an open letter to President Trump. Signed by twenty-four retired intelligence and military officers and released under the heading, “Trump Should Rethink Syria Escalation,” they say they are writing “to give you an unambiguous warning of the threat of armed hostilities with Russia—with the risk of escalation to nuclear war.” Also joining those warning of the danger is retired Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff of U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, who has repeatedly referred to Powell’s use of the Blair dossier in his address to the UN as a fraud. Wilkerson demands that Tillerson apologize to Lavrov for his charges against Russia.

While the interventions of Postol, Wilkerson and the VIPS are significant, as they establish a standard of truth as essential before missiles are launched, they do not identify the key role of the British. In his comments, LaRouche has insisted that such an omission can be fatal.

What we are witnessing, LaRouche said, in the escalation against Syria and Russia, is “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.... 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.

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