Your Congressman Just Voted
for War with Russia
[Print version of this editorial]
July 31—On July 25, in a flagrantly unconstitutional action, the United States House of Representatives voted 419 to 3 to impose harsh sanctions against the nation of Russia. This action was followed two days later when the United States Senate voted 98 to 2 for the sanctions bill. This legislation imposes new sanctions, codifies existing penalties into law—including the harsh sanctions imposed by Barack Obama in 2016—and gives Congress veto power over any attempt by President Trump to remove or relax them. With these votes, the Congress has acted to effect an illegal seizure of the direction of foreign policy from the duly elected President. The primary argument that was utilized in justifying these anti-Russia measures was the lie that Russia interfered in the 2016 U.S. election, through “hacking” and other means.
The combined vote, in both houses, was 517 to 5. Such folly and lemming-like uniform cowardice has probably not been seen in the United States Congress since the passage of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution in 1964, a resolution which passed the Congress by a vote of 504 to 2. That vote, from fifty-three years ago, ushered in a decade of war, which killed tens of thousands of Americans and millions of Vietnamese, and plunged the United States into a deep cultural and political despair. Today, the stakes for the United States—and for all of humanity—are much, much higher. The U.S. Congress, backed by the establishment media, has now acted to wreck the peace initiatives of the Trump administration and put the world back on a trajectory toward war.
There were five heroes who opposed this madness. They are: Senators Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and Representatives Justin Amash (R-Mich.), John Duncan (R-Tenn.) and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.). Not a single Democrat voted against the sanctions bill!
This vote for a policy of war is the result of the decades-long penetration of the United States government by allies and servants of the British Empire. Recall that it was Tony Blair and his fake Dodgy Dossier which set the stage for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Recall that it was Britain which partnered with the Bush and Obama administrations in effecting a massive NATO military expansion, in the overthrow and murder of Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, in the 2014 Nazi coup d’état in the Ukraine, and in continuing military confrontation with China in East Asia. It is the British System, and its legacy of geopolitics, which is behind all of this, and it is their corruption of U.S. intelligence agencies, the establishment news media and the leadership of both major political parties which has brought us to this moment of crisis.
Under Barack Obama, the United States, in alliance with Britain, implemented a policy of aggressive military confrontation with both Russia and China—this, accompanied by a parallel policy of illegal global “regime changes,” as well as support for ISIS terrorists. Donald Trump, in his election campaign, vowed to reverse these policies, and as President, he has taken steps to correct the worst of these crimes. These steps include, but are not limited to, his personal discussions with both Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin, as well as his decision to end the CIA’s covert program to arm and train Syrian rebels now battling the government of Bashar al-Assad.
The insane and cowardly U.S. Congress has now voted to sabotage these peace initiatives by the President and to revive the war drive of the Obama administration, a war drive fully endorsed by Hillary Clinton. This is not what the people of the United States voted for in 2016. Forty-three percent of Democratic Party voters cast their ballots for Bernie Sanders, stating emphatically their desire to overturn the neocon policies of the Obama regime. In the general election, Donald Trump won thirty states and defeated Hillary Clinton by almost eighty electoral votes. Congress has now acted, not only against the peace initiatives of President Trump, but in flagrant defiance of the wishes of the American people.
At the same time, this action occurs as Lyndon LaRouche and other economists are warning of a near-term eruption of a financial and banking crisis worse than 2007-2008. Such a monetary blow-out will unleash chaos in the United States and Europe, the repercussions of which can only heighten the strategic danger. The stakes for humanity have never been this high.
Lies, Lies, and More Lies
During the past week, three interventions have been made which utterly demolish all claims that the Russian government “hacked” Democratic National Committee (DNC) computers in an effort to influence the 2016 U.S. elections. The evidence presented in these interventions utterly demolishes the rationale put forward to justify the new anti-Russia sanctions.
On July 24, the Veterans Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (an organization comprised of former FBI, NSA, CIA and other intelligence experts) released a Memorandum for President Trump, wherein they demonstrate that the release of DNC files far more likely came from a “leak,” not a “hack,” and they also document, conclusively, that the allegations of Russian involvement are a fairy tale, a created narrative which has no evidence to support it. On July 27, Scott Ritter, a former United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq, published his own review of the VIPS findings, titled “Time to Reassess the Roles Played by Guccifer 2.0 and Russia in the DNC ‘Hack.’” Although Ritter takes exception to a few of the details contained in the Memorandum, he emphatically states, “To date there has been no examination worthy of the name regarding the facts that underpin the accusations at the center of the American argument against Russia—that the GRU hacked the DNC server and used Guccifer 2.0 as a conduit for the release of stolen documents in a manner designed to influence the American presidential election. The VIPS memorandum of July 24, 2017, questions the veracity of these claims. I believe these doubts are well founded.” Then, on July 28, LaRouche PAC conducted a live interview with Ray McGovern, a former CIA analyst and former Chair of the National Intelligence Estimates, who was one of the signers of the VIPS Memorandum. In that interview, McGovern details the VIPS findings, including the computer forensic investigation of independent analyst Skip Folden, a retired IBM Program Manager for Information Technology. McGovern presents both the fraudulent nature of the Guccifer 2.0/Russian hacking narrative as well as the political motivations behind the lies. Further details of the evidence in this case will not be presented here. It is all available in the Internet links cited above.
It is important to recall that all of the current furor was kicked off with an announcement by Julian Assange on June 12, 2016, when he stated in a mass-circulation interview on Britain’s ITV, that “we have emails related to Hillary Clinton which are awaiting publication.” It is also important to emphasize that Assange has stated repeatedly that the documents he released came from a “leak,” not a “hack.” The documents posted by Assange proved conclusively that the DNC was covertly working with Hillary Clinton’s campaign to run dirty tricks against then Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders. No one in the DNC or the Clinton entourage has ever denied the validity of the documents released by Assange; and the proof of DNC intervention into the primary process on behalf of Hillary Clinton, and against Bernie Sanders, was so strong that DNC Chairman Debbie Wasserman Schultz was forced to resign. The subsequent, alleged Guccifer 2.0 “hacks” were all designed to both discredit Assange and to create the false flag allegations of “Russian interference.” It is precisely the fraudulent nature of the Guccifer 2.0 narrative that the VIPS Memorandum addresses.
The Coup d’État Means War
Lyndon LaRouche has stated that if the coup d’etat against President Trump succeeds, we will have nuclear war.
With certainty, it can be stated that both Russia and China are paying very close attention to developments in the United States. And they are taking steps to protect themselves. In Russia, on July 30, a Main Naval Parade was held for the first time in modern Russia’s history—on Navy Day, in celebration of the creation of the Russian Navy by Peter the Great in 1696. For the first time it brought together ships from Russia’s Baltic, Black Sea, Northern, and Pacific Fleets, with its Caspian Flotilla, for a total of 5,000 sailors—and for the first time in modern Russian history, it was inspected by Russia’s President. Putin’s short address began by affirming that “Russia’s history is inseparable from the victories of its courageous and fearless Navy. Our country’s status as a strong marine power has been achieved through the brave acts of sailors and officers, the inventive talent of our shipbuilders and the daring exploits of sea explorers.”
At the same time, in China, the 90th anniversary of the People’s Liberation Army was celebrated by a military parade, for the first time since the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. It was held at Zhurihe, in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, at China’s biggest military base, which specializes in training in advanced technology. The Wall Street Journal reports that new, more-capable ICBMs were displayed with other new weapons, and 12,000 mechanized troops.
China’s official news agency Xinhua reports that this was the first time President Xi Jinping has overseen such a large parade at a military base. It noted that “Late leaders Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping also inspected troops in the field at key moments in history.”
In his address, Xi said, “The world is not all at peace, and peace must be safeguarded.”
At this point, the members of Congress who voted for the sanctions bill against Russia can only be described as—witting or unwitting — accomplices in this war drive. And those members of Congress who continue to retail the line that the “Russians hacked the election,” or that the “Trump is in bed with the Russians,” stand exposed as imbeciles, liars, or cowards. There is no fourth choice. The political establishment—including leading elements of both major parties—wishes to overturn the election and to return the country to a policy of financial looting and a build-up for war.
It is clear that many members of Congress are terrified of the FBI, the CIA, and other parts of the Intelligence establishment, including such unofficial bodies as AIPAC. What many fail to see, is that behind these spook apparatchiks, lies the guiding hand of British geopolitics. We are dealing with a corrupted American political establishment. Last November, the American people did not vote for a policy of NATO expansion, nuclear weapons modernization, violent regime changes, military confrontation with China in Asia, and strategic confrontation with Russia.
The American people did not vote for war. Why did your Congressman?
