WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 2016
Volume 3, Number 26
EIR Daily Alert Service
P.O. Box 17390, Washington, DC 20041-0390
• Defeating Obama on the JASTA Bill Can Begin the Fall of the British Empire
• Saudi Arabia Threatens U.S. Congress, Business, Banks
• ‘Nuclear Ash’ Carter Waves Russian Bogeyman To Justify Nuclear Build-Up
• Colombian Government Signs ‘Peace’ Deal with the FARC To Push Forward with Drug Legalization
• U.S. May Provide Syrian Terrorists with MANPADS
• Deutsche Bank Will Drag the City of London Down With It
• Daily Telegraph: Deutsche Bank May Bring Down Merkel
• Commerzbank in Deep Trouble, Too
EDITORIAL
Defeating Obama on the JASTA Bill Can Begin the Fall of the British Empire
Sept. 27 (EIRNS)—A decisive battle between two global power structures—the British Empire and its bankrupt financial oligarchy internationally on the one hand, and the new paradigm for development centered in China, Russia and the forces connected to the LaRouche movement in the U.S. and Europe—is now being decided in the U.S. The U.S. Senate is scheduled to hold a two-hour debate Wednesday morning, and then vote, to override the treasonous veto by the British puppet Obama of the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA), which would allow American victims of 9/11 to bring suit against the Saudi Royals who funded and directed the 9/11 terror assault on the U.S. These are the same sponsors of essentially all subsequent terrorist movements worldwide, including the terrorist forces which destroyed Iraq and Libya, and are attempting to do the same in Syria.
Those who understand that the fate of mankind, of civilization itself, is being challenged by this British/Saudi imperial beast, are mobilizing internationally to bring pressure and encouragement to the Members of the U.S. Congress, which earlier voted unanimously to pass the JASTA Bill, to stand up to the President’s treasonous veto, which placed Obama squarely on the side of the terrorists and their sponsors in Riyadh and London.
A massive mobilization of the Empire’s minions has been thrown into the fight. The Saudis are spending more than $250,000 a month fighting the JASTA bill, hiring powerful lobbyists to coerce the Congress. They have also threatened major U.S. corporations with the termination of their huge assets in the Saudi Kingdom, demanding that they use their clout to threaten Members of Congress to sustain Obama’s veto. Already, according to Politico, GE, Dow Chemical, Boeing and Chevron, and perhaps others, have joined the defense of the Empire’s terrorist forces against American victims of that terror, by pressuring Members of Congress to sustain Obama’s veto, lying that the bill will lead to a massive flight of international business and capital from the U.S. and the collapse of the U.S. economy.
The reality behind this fight is the imminent danger of global war and economic chaos if the U.S. continues its geopolitical confrontation with Russia and China. U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter (known now as “Nuclear Ash” Carter), appeared today at the Minot Air Force base in North Dakota, a strategic nuclear weapons base. Standing before a B-52 nuclear bomber, Carter declared that the U.S. must replace and modernize its entire nuclear weapons stockpile, to face what he described as a real threat of an attack from Russia or North Korea—even if it were a non-nuclear attack. Obama had earlier announced a $1 trillion program for modernizing some of the U.S. nuclear weapons. Now “Nuclear Ash” has expanded it further, to meet a non-existing threat, while Obama and Carter are moving U.S. strategic forces along the entire Russian border in Europe and the Chinese border in Asia, an unprecedented threat to their security.
It should be no surprise that Carter also penned a letter to the Congress demanding that they sustain Obama’s veto of JASTA, claiming it would jeopardize our military adventures around the world.
At the same time, Reuters reports that unnamed Obama Administration officials have informed them that the U.S. is considering providing shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles (MANPADS) to the opposition in Syria, and perhaps even surface-to-air missiles (SAMs). Such a move would clearly bring the world closer to world war.
Behind the insanity of war and terror stands the bankrupt banking system of the Empire. As Deutsche Bank crumbles, the threat of contagion from the collapse of their derivative holdings—the largest of any bank in the world—is already shaking the foundations of the entire system.
The problem, Lyndon LaRouche said today, is that the U.S., as a nation, is controlled mostly and largely by the British imperial system, mass murderers which most Americans hate. The LaRouche movement is mobilizing groupings of people in the United States appropriate to get the job done: the vote that will bury the British, meaning Wall Street and Obama. The forces who will do the job of ensuring that Obama will not be in charge of U.S. policy must prevail, and with the JASTA veto override vote, we are on the edge of getting the margin required for success, in the coming days, take back control of policymaking in the U.S.
The issue is: Can we, between us, with China and Russia allied, assemble the force to defeat this evil?
We are orchestrating a decision that will determine the fate of the world, LaRouche said. We must have leading forces with the strength to bring down the British, the Saudis: the evil people. We may not be the best people, he concluded, but we’re human!
U.S. POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC
Saudi Arabia Threatens U.S. Congress, Business, Banks
Sept. 27 (EIRNS)—Agents of the bankrupt, genocidal Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, in and out of the Obama administration, have thrown all caution to the wind, in their desperation to stop enactment of the JASTA bill which will allow the truth of the Kingdom’s role in organizing, financing and deploying the 9/11 attack on the United States to finally be exposed in full. This week, Saudi agents threatened economic warfare against “even ordinary American commercial activity,” and, in effect, harm to the U.S. military, should the U.S. Congress override Obama’s veto of JASTA.
The Saudi Royal Family delivered the threats of economic warfare in their own name. With former Sen. Trent Lott’s treacherous imprimatur, Squire Patton Boggs, registered Saudi agents, sent e-mails to every legislative aide in both chambers of Congress between yesterday and today, “on behalf of “The Center for Studies and Media Affairs at the Saudi Royal Court,” warning that enactment of JASTA could lead to multiplying retaliatory lawsuits against American manufacturers and banks.
Politico reported last night that this tactic has gotten at least four U.S. corporations—GE, Dow Chemical, Boeing and Chevron—to pressure Congress to kill JASTA by letting Obama’s veto stand. Letters to Congress from CEOs of the companies against JASTA were extracted by Saudi threats that “their own corporate assets in the kingdom could be at risk if the law takes effect,” as Politico put it. Politico quoted from a Saudi e-mail made available to it: “Many foreign entities have long-standing, intimate relations with U.S. financial institutions that they would undoubtedly unwind, to the further detriment of the U.S. economy. American corporations with interests abroad may be at risk of retaliation, a possibility recently expressed by GE and Dow.”
In an e-mail made available to EIR by one House office, the Saudi message is outraged that under JASTA, foreign governments could be sued as “aiding and abetting terrorism” for “acts that contribute—even tangentially (!)—to an act of terrorism in the United States”; likewise, American and foreign banks “that happen to process transactions for terrorists”!
Politico reports that the Saudis are spending more than $250,000 a month lobbying against JASTA alone. But White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest has never heard of the “Saudi lobby,” he told an incredulous White House press corps yesterday when questioned at the briefing. “I will say that this is the first time that I’ve heard the words, Saudi lobby. Maybe that means I need to get out more, but it’s the first time that I’ve heard it,” Earnest stated with a straight face.
It was Defense Secretary “Nuclear Ash” Carter and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford who delivered the Saudi threats to Congress that U.S. military members would be threatened by JASTA. The duo sent coordinated letters to Rep. William Thornberry, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, protesting mightily of the potential blowback if “our partners and allies” could be sued, and not just the “state sponsors of terrorism” designated by the Bush/Obama regimes which have protected Saudi Arabia—and the British Crown.
London’s Daily Telegraph published yet another article yesterday night against JASTA, this one worried that “U.S. Anti-Terror Law Puts British Soldiers At Risk of Prosecution,” along the lines of the Carter/Dunford letters. “Britain’s intelligence and security agencies, MI6 and MI5, have also warned about the implications of the proposed legislation, as it could make them vulnerable to hostile lawsuits by American lawyers attempting to prove that British-based jihadists have been involved in terror plots against U.S. targets.” Indeed.
‘Nuclear Ash’ Carter Waves Russian Bogeyman To Justify Nuclear Build-Up
Sept. 27 (EIRNS)—Secretary of Defense Ash Carter (now known as “Nuclear Ash” Carter) traveled to Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota, yesterday, where, with a B-52 parked behind him, he delivered a speech on U.S. nuclear deterrence and the importance of providing “options” to the President should deterrence fail.
“One way the nuclear landscape has changed,” said Carter, “we didn’t build new types of nuclear weapons or delivery systems for the last 25 years, but others did, at the same time that our allies in Asia, the Middle East, and NATO did not.”
“Even in 2016, deterrence still depends on perception—what potential adversaries see, and therefore believe—about our will and ability to act,” Carter said. “This means that as their perceptions shift, so must our strategy and actions.” A large-scale nuclear attack is not likely, the Secretary said. The most likely scenario is “the unwise resort to smaller but still unprecedentedly terrible attacks, for example by Russia or North Korea, to try to coerce a conventionally superior opponent to back off or abandon an ally during a crisis,” Carter said. “We cannot allow that to happen.”
Therefore, he argued, the replacement of the entire U.S. nuclear delivery system is required—all of it, not parts of it, as some have argued, but every bit of it.
“If we don’t replace these systems, quite simply they will age even more, and become unsafe, unreliable, and ineffective,” Carter said. And, if some parts of it are lost, “That would mean losing confidence in our ability to deter, which we can’t afford in today’s volatile security environment.”
Colombian Government Signs ‘Peace’ Deal with the FARC To Push Forward with Drug Legalization
Sept. 27 (EIRNS)—Yesterday the Santos government of Colombia signed a so-called “peace” deal with the FARC, the world’s largest cocaine cartel, in the approving presence of Obama representative John Kerry, Cuban President Raul Castro, and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.
No amount of media hoopla can hide the simple fact that the main intended objective of the pact is to advance the British Empire’s cause of drug legalization in Colombia and internationally. Under the “peace” deal, there will be an “overhaul” of anti-narcotics policies to open the door to full legalization. Back in mid-2015, the government of Juan Manuel Santos—who is a long-time protégé of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair—stopped herbicide spraying of the coca crop. In December 2015, he issued a decree legalizing so-called “medical marijuana,” noting that the U.S. was doing the same under Obama. As a result, Colombian coca production has doubled since 2013, rising by 39% in 2015 alone. Most of the increase has occurred in the southwest area of Colombia, under FARC control. Colombia is now by far and away the world’s leading cocaine source, producing more coca than Peru and Bolivia combined.
In a prominently featured interview last night with Iran’s PressTV, EIR Ibero-American Editor Dennis Small stated: “The health minister of the Santos government in Colombia has openly announced that they will use the openings now to export marijuana internationally and to convert Colombia into an exporter of marijuana, the way Chile exports wine.”
“What we are dealing with here is actually an elaborate operation involving the United States government of Obama, the British government, and definitely Santos, who is very close to Tony Blair in the United Kingdom, whose outcome is intended to be not peace, but drug legalization….
“We’re talking about a $1 trillion per year business, and what has opened the door to legalization has been what the President of the United States, Barack Obama, has done, by legalizing drugs in this country, and that has only led to an increase in consumption and production, and devastation of the youth in my country.
“Obama—the facts should be known—is in favor of drugs, and he is also a supporter of terrorism internationally, as can be seen in the fight going on right now in the Congress of the United States to pass the JASTA bill, which would hold Saudi Arabia accountable for what happened on 9/11, and Obama has vetoed that bill. So I think the battle lines are actually fairly clear, if you look at it from this kind of international overview.”
STRATEGIC WAR DANGER
U.S. May Provide Syrian Terrorists with MANPADS
Sept. 27 (EIRNS)—In the aftermath of the collapse of the Kerry-Lavrov cease-fire deal, the U.S. is now threatening to allow the supply of surface-to-air missiles to the terrorist groups, though not directly by the U.S. One consequence of the latest diplomatic failure may be that Gulf Arab states or Turkey could step up arms supplies to rebel factions, including shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles (MANPADS), unnamed U.S. officials told Reuters.
“The Saudis have always thought that the way to get the Russians to back off is what worked in Afghanistan 30 years ago—negating their air power by giving MANPADS to the mujahideen,” said one U.S. official. “So far, we’ve been able to convince them that the risks of that are much higher today because we’re not dealing with a Soviet Union in retreat, but a Russian leader who’s bent on rebuilding Russian power and less likely to flinch,” this official said, referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Another administration official said, “The opposition has a right to defend itself [as if the opposition were a sovereign power—ed.] and they will not be left defenseless in the face of this indiscriminate bombardment.”
COLLAPSING WESTERN FINANCIAL SYSTEM
Deutsche Bank Will Drag the City of London Down With It
Sept. 27 (EIRNS)—Deutsche Bank’s share price tumbled another 7.5% to €10.55 on Monday, dragging it down to a level not seen since the mid-1980s. The share price drop occurred after Angela Merkel reportedly claimed that the government would not intervene to save the bank before the national elections, scheduled for next year. This follows uncertainty about the $14 billion fine the U.S. Department of Justice wants to impose on Deutsche Bank. Britain’s Guardian reports that there are other issues Deutsche Bank faces, including potentially expensive inquiries into alleged currency manipulation, precious metals trading, and billions of dollars of funds transferred out of Russia.
When Deutsche Bank blows, it will take the City of London with it. The shares of Lloyds Banking Group, Barclays, and Royal Bank of Scotland are taking a hit over Brexit and facing fines. Some analysts warn that RBS could face a $12 billion penalty.
“Talk of a hard Brexit has not been welcomed by the market,” said Nicholas Hyett, equity analyst at financial firm Hargreaves Lansdown.
The Motley Fool’s Rupert Hargreaves warns that if [sic] Deutsche Bank’s derivatives book takes a hit, “the systematic damage could be unprecedented as it would leave the other leading European banks such as Barclays with a large hole in their balance sheets.”
The similarities between Barclays and Deutsche Bank include the former also being stuck with huge fines from regulators, a high cost base, and a lack of confidence among investors.
Going on “for the time being, Deutsche’s problems may be the focus of the financial world but Barclays is facing similar pressures and a collapse in Germany could quickly spread to the U.K.,” opines the Guardian.
Daily Telegraph: Deutsche Bank May Bring Down Merkel
Sept. 27 (EIRNS)—“Our image of German banks, and the German economy, as completely rock solid is so strong that it takes a lot to persuade us they might be in trouble,” Britain’s Daily Telegraph writes today. “And yet it has become increasingly hard to ignore the slow-motion car crash that is Deutsche Bank, or to avoid the conclusion that something very nasty is developing at what was once seen as Europe’s strongest financial institution. Its shares have been in free-fall for a year, touching a new low of €10.7 on Monday, down from €27 a year ago. Over the weekend, the German Chancellor Angela Merkel waded into the mess with a briefing that there could be no government bail-out of the bank.
“But hold on. Surely that is an extraordinary decision? If the German government does not stand behind the bank, then inevitably all its counter-parties—the other banks and institutions it deals with—are going to start feeling very nervous about trading with it. As we know from 2008, once confidence starts to evaporate, a bank is in big, big trouble. In fact, if Deutsche does go down, it is looking increasingly likely that it will take Merkel with it—and quite possibly the euro as well.”
The Telegraph, which goes into some more detail of how the bank has gone rapidly down since the beginning of this year and still does, notes that “there is a clear feel of 2008” and warns that Merkel (along with her Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble) is playing a dangerous game, which can easily go dead wrong, and there her chancellorship goes. And not rescuing Deutsche Bank will send shock waves across Europe, naturally.
Commerzbank in Deep Trouble, Too
Sept. 27 (EIRNS)—With the all-too-justified broad discussions about Deutsche Bank, the big troubles of Commerzbank must not be overlooked: As the German Handelsblatt business daily points out today, the bank, Germany’s second-largest, is about to go through a drastic shrinkage of operations whose success is not guaranteed. CEO Martin Ziehlke wants to cut €1 billion in expenses and reduce staff from 50,000 to 41,000, by 2020 (!) (well, four years is a very long time which the bank may not have). For the time being, the bank will not pay dividends. Details are expected at a press conference with Ziehlke on Friday, Sept. 30.
Commerzbank, with its record of gross engagements in financial conduits, has been rumored as a candidate for merger with Deutsche Bank—for which Deutsche Bank, however, has no money, and the German government has just declared it is not willing to consolidate Deutsche Bank with taxpayer money per bail-out. Commerzbank, itself, is already a merger with the former Dresdner Bank, a deal made possible in 2009 with support and a take-over by the government, however with none of the 320 conduits of Commerzbank that were known at that time, being shut down. Commerzbank has “bought itself back from the government” in the meantime, probably with fictitious profits made in these conduits.
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