LaRouche:
Targetting of Chinese Embassy 'culpable, and intentional'

May 10 (EIRNS)--Democratic Presidential pre-candidate Lyndon H. LaRouche issued the following statement on the implications of the recent NATO bombing of China's Belgrade Embassy.

The following points are to be emphasized as the crucial dilemmas in the bombing of China's Belgrade Embassy:

1. The most important element of proof of the certainty of willful guilt by parties at the highest level of the NATO command, feature the following:

   1. The use of "over-the-horizon" targetting of regulated trajectory bombs and missiles requires a GPS-based method of enforced exclusion of non-permitted targets (such as embassies, hospitals, schools, etc.) from the targetting.

      In other words, every electronic target must be stated in terms of military-grade GPS position, and that targetting screened against the GPS-position list of prohibitted targets. A coincidence must ensure immediate, automatic pre-cancellation of the target. This is to ensure that no "Strangelove"-type of character within the NATO air and ship-based air and missile command bypasses a central prohibition against those prohibited targets.

      Negligence in respect to efficient enforcement of this rule is, according to the "drunken driver principle," already sufficient proof of culpability at all relevant layers of the NATO military command, from the top down.

   2. The obligation to effect and enforce such targetting discipline goes automatically with "the territory." Any failure to install and maintain such a discipline efficiently, is a court-martial offense on principle. Any violation of that rule is prima facie evidence of culpability by those officials at the highest level who should have established and efficiently enforced such rules. The least result of violation of this rule shall be prompt dismissal of all such officials "for the good of the service." Willful violation of the requirement to establish and enforce such a rule is proof of a culpability of the relatively highest degree. The Nuremberg wartime standard of "either knew, or should have known" applies to any relevant high-ranking NATO military or other official of any nation.

      In the case of a military official, this is sufficient cause for court-martial proceedings. In the case of a relevant non-military official, this is cause for war-crimes proceedings. In the most important cases, the culpable military official is also subject to war-crimes proceedings.

   3. Enforcement of the "either knew, or should have known" standard requires no proof of explicit intent.

   4. The statement of NATO's Gen. Wesley Clark, to the effect that he continues to stand by the system, if verified as to accuracy of the quote and explicit context of the utterance, would be sufficient proof to require his immediate discharge for cause of culpable intent to foster negligence in related matters.

2. The foregoing rules apply as long as the warfare continues. Only under the rule of the Treaty of Westphalia can exceptions to such prosecutions be allowed. This is relevant to the matter of possible charges of crimes against humanity which might be placed at some future time against such parties as officials of Yugoslavia or others. The power of forgiveness is relegated in cases of offenses committed during warfare or similar states of conflict, is a treaty power, which if adopted, must be respected in perpetuity. This power of forgiveness is a natural extension of the principle of justified warfare, as typified by the labored definition of this connection in the course of the protracted negotiations of the Treaty of Westphalia.

   Revenge is never an honorable feature of justice. Action for purposes of revenge is itself a crime against the principles of justified warfare, and thus a crime against humanity. Revenge is an act of barbarism in and of itself.

3. For reasons of proof defined above, the targetting of China's Belgrade Embassy was not only culpable per se, but clearly intentional.

   1. The failure to establish and apply reasonably available means to ensure no targetting of prohibited places is sufficient proof of intent under the Nuremberg rule of "knew, or should have known."

   2. There are expressed motives by NATO and related relevant officials, before and after the bombing of China's Belgrade Embassy, to show the intent to conduct such violations of international law under the pretext created by use of covert means, to lay the blame after the event on an anomaly in the system. This intent has been shown, not only by the statement attributed to NATO's Gen. Wesley Clark, but by such opponents of the recent decisions by both U.S. President Clinton and NATO's Washington summit, as Her Majesty's Blair government. A similar intent is indicated for the cases of palpably disgruntled opponents of President Clinton's decision within the U.S.A. institutions participating in NATO operations against Yugoslvia, and against strong opponents of President Clinton's doctrine of "constructive engagement within China."

   3. The NATO bombing of China's Belgrade Embassy is consistent, in imputable intent and consequences, with the efforts of the British government and the U.S. anti-China lobby, to enrage China to such a degree as to undermine the present government of China and its efforts to maintain constructive engagement with the U.S.A.

4. The great folly in U.S. policy which contributes to allowing such a mess to be created by such meddlers, is the error of allowing it to be said that the present Balkan war is a local Balkan issue defined solely by the issue of Kosovo "ethnic cleansing." This war is the result of an orchestrated campaign, led by Her Majesty's Blair government, and including Blair government sympathizers within the U.S.A. political and executive establishment, to introduce a new global military policy. This new policy was first attempted to be put into effect in the aborted effort to launch a new war against Iraq, during early 1998, and was set into motion on or about the time of the first weeks of October 1998, with the sequence of bombing of Sudan, Iraq, and the deliberate abortion of the Rambouillet negotiations to the purpose of orchestration of the present Balkan war.

   The target of this war has been the collaboration developing among China, India, and Russia, assuming that the targets are sufficiently weak, in face of a confrontation with the NATO superpower force, that they have no choice but to submit to the terrifying will of Her Majesty's Blair government, even to the extent of allying with Her Majesty's government against the U.S.A. itself.

   This consideration must be faced. The implication is, that any U.S. official supporting the policies of Her Majesty's Blair government may be acting treasonously, if not otherwise explicitly guilty of treason, against the U.S.A.