EDITORIAL
No Token Solutions Exist—Failure To Create a New Financial System Now Will Mean War
July 19 (EIRNS)—The European leadership is panicked about the rapid collapse of the banking system. Italy is blaming Germany and Deutsche Bank, Germany is blaming Italy, while Wall Street complains about the Europeans undermining the fake “recovery.” This is dangerous and psychotic nonsense. We are experiencing the breakdown of the entire trans-Atlantic banking system, not just some part of it; and no solution exists outside of the immediate creation of laws in Europe and the U.S. to facilitate a new, Hamiltonian financial and economic order. The $2 quadrillion in derivative gambling debt must be written off, and the commercial banking system recapitalized to do its legitimate job, directing credit into reconstructing the world economy.
The fact that both the Republican and Democratic Parties have placed passage of Glass-Steagall into their electoral platforms has sent Wall Street into conniptions, terrified that, as Barron’s reports, “there is an unappreciated risk that Glass-Steagall could be reimposed in 2017 or 2018, regardless of who wins.” The fact is, the momentum for Glass-Steagall is not coming from the already-failed candidates, nor from the failed parties they represent, but from a shift in thinking in the population in the direction of the LaRouche movement’s decades-long fight for Glass-Steagall.
The same is true of the release of the 28 pages on the Saudi role in international terrorism, a fight led by the LaRouche movement. The population had been lulled to sleep about the danger of Bush and Obama’s overt support for terrorists to achieve their “regime change” objectives, and also about the reality of the economic disintegration of the entire Western financial system under the casino approach to banking. Now that neither can be covered up, the truth is finally in the public eye.
As the emergency statement of July 12 by Helga Zepp-LaRouche states about the pending collapse of Deutsche Bank, there must be “an immediate reorientation of the bank, back to its tradition which prevailed until 1989 under the leadership of Alfred Herrhausen.” Mrs. LaRouche emphasized July 18 that Herrhausen was assassinated in 1989 because he was responding to the unfolding collapse of the Soviet Union with a new policy, based on a higher concept of Man and Mankind’s common aims. He posed an immediate mobilization of the Western economies to launch infrastructure and industrial reconstruction in Poland, and eventually across Eurasia—precisely as Lyndon LaRouche had identified in his famous Kempinski Hotel press conference in Berlin in October 1988.
The British Empire and its satrapies could not tolerate that new paradigm, and with Herrhausen’s elimination, launched the transformation of Europe into a centralized dictatorship under the 1992 Maastricht Treaty, under a banking system which put profit maximization through speculation ahead of human development, while provoking endless wars. That process has now brought the entire system to ruin.
Lyndon LaRouche today reiterated that Germany, the U.S., and every other Western nation must immediately create new legislation to change the system—the entire system—back to Hamiltonian banking of the sort which Herrhausen practiced, and begin immediately generating credit to the full carrying capacity of the national economies of the trans-Atlantic region.
While the dangers are multiplying—of terrorism, war, financial collapse—so also are the breakthroughs, as with Glass-Steagall and the 28 pages. With China and Russia leading the world towards a new paradigm based on global development and cooperation against terrorism, now is the time to turn the U.S. back to its Hamiltonian roots, to join with our natural allies, Russia and China, as we did in defeating fascism in World War II, and as we must in defeating the new fascism today coming from the City of London and Wall Street.
U.S. POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC
Senator Blumenthal, 9/11 Families Demand JASTA Be Passed, Allowing Court Action vs. Saudi Arabia
July 19 (EIRNS)—Immediately after the release on July 15 of the finally declassified “28 pages” of the Congressional Joint Inquiry into the 9/11 attack on the United States, U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) issued a hard-hitting statement urging immediate follow-up Congressional action; and today, he gave a press conference in Connecticut with representatives of families of victims of 9/11.
Blumenthal’s July 15 statement said, “These new revelations are a chilling description of Saudi ties to terrorists, Saudi payments to terrorists, and Saudi obstruction of U.S. anti-terrorism investigations. While the pages do not reach a conclusion regarding Saudi involvement in the 9/11 attacks, they provide more than enough evidence to raise serious concerns. These concerns should be addressed and proved or disproved in court, but loopholes in America’s anti-terrorism laws make that impossible. Congress must immediately pass the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, introduced by Senators Schumer and Cornyn and myself, to ensure any nation that conspires against the American people can be brought to justice.”
JASTA, as the bill is known, was passed by the Senate in May, and awaits action in the House of Representatives.
Today, Senator Blumenthal and leaders of families who lost loved ones in the bestial 9/11 attack, held a press conference on the steps of the New Haven Federal Courthouse, to demand that the House of Representatives now pass JASTA, so that it can become law. “Saudi Arabia sponsored and supported terrorism, according to some of these recent revelations. There’s evidence of it, and these families deserve their day in court,” said Blumenthal.
Mary Fetchet, founder of “Voices of September 11th,” with her husband Frank, who lost their 24-year-old son that day, spoke in support Senator Blumenthal’s call for the House of Representatives to pass JASTA, “so that all Americans can feel confident that those who are funding terrorist acts are held accountable.”
She situated the urgency of this action in light of the wanton “carnage” spreading across the world:
“Acts of terrorism are happening regularly, innocent lives are lost, families are destroyed, communities are damaged. The recruitment of young people to ISIS and other terrorist groups is happening, both here and abroad,” Fetchet said. “I ask, how are these operations funded? Who is supporting the operatives as they plan, recruit and carry out these horrific events? We can capture, kill, and investigate the trail of evidence, but I am convinced that unless we hold those accountable for funding terrorism, our communities and countries, both in the U.S. and abroad, will be constantly dealing with the carnage.”
Florida Bulldog Points to 2005 Intelligence Report on Saudi Terrorist Ties, Classified Until Mid-July
July 19 (EIRNS)—Florida Bulldog intrepid editor Dan Christensen today published a new article, drawing attention to a one-page “Executive Summary” of a September 2005 “joint FBI-CIA intelligence report assessing the nature and extent of Saudi government support of terrorism,” which Director of National Intelligence James Clapper released July 15, along with the redacted 28 pages from the 2002 Congressional Joint Inquiry into 9/11.
Christensen’s latest article points up the kind of follow-on to the public release of the long-classified 28 pages, that former Sen. Bob Graham (D-FL), co-chair of the Inquiry, said must happen. Graham’s remarks were reported last evening by the Florida State University’s public radio station WFSU, “I’ve described it as being like pulling the cork out of the bottle. You’re happy that you’ve opened the bottle, but we’ve got a lot of work to do with the liquid that’s inside that bottle.”
According to Christensen, the existence of the 2005 assessment was previously unknown; Congress had required it be produced in a classified annex of the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2004. Not only were significant sections of the released one-page summary blacked out, but so was half of the one-paragraph, accompanying transmittal letter for the annex signed by FBI’s Robert Mueller and then-CIA Director Porter Goss!
The Executive Summary’s attempted whitewash of the Saudis— “there is no evidence that either the Saudi government or members of the Saudi royal family knowingly provided support for the attacks of 11 September 2001 or that they had foreknowledge of terrorist operations in the Kingdom or elsewhere” (emphasis added)—is followed by the admission that:
“There is evidence that official Saudi entities, [redacted] and associated nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), provide financial and logistical support to individuals in the United States and around the world, some of whom are associated with terrorism-related activity…. The Saudi government and many of its agencies have been infiltrated and exploited by individuals associated with or sympathetic to Al-Qaida.”
Christensen’s article, “28 Pages Connect Saudi Prince To Al Qaeda Leader, Supporters of 9/11 Hijackers,” otherwise features new leads to Florida contained in the 28 pages, and rubs in the Saudi Royal Family connection to the Bush family.
“The Saudi ambassador who met with President George W. Bush at the White House two days after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001 had connections to a major al-Qaeda figure and other Saudis suspected of helping two of the suicide hijackers while they were in the United States,” the Bulldog story opens, illustrated by a picture of Dick Cheney, then Saudi Ambassador to Washington Prince Bandar, Condoleezza Rice, and G.W. Bush sitting—appropriately—on the Truman Balcony of the White House on Sept. 13, 2001.
Glass-Steagall on U.S. Election Agenda; Wall Street Is Not Happy
July 19 (EIRNS)—The Republican Party convention’s passage yesterday of a Glass-Steagall plank for its platform, featured by Donald Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort at his press conference, following upon the Democratic Party Platform Committee’s unanimous vote to include passage of Glass-Steagall in its platform, has set Wall Street lobbyists into high gear. Every media outlet from the Wall Street Journal to Barron’s, to the American Banker, and in-between, ranted against the proposal to re-instate FDR’s Glass-Steagall law. After all Wall Street had done to rig arguably the worst Presidential election in U.S. history!
Amidst the refrain that political platforms are non-binding and often don’t get implemented, Wall Street has to acknowledge that restoration of Glass-Steagall has been adopted by both parties, not because of the parties, and certainly not because of their candidates, but because it is a burning national sentiment.
Meanwhile, take note that with the July 14th addition of Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) as a co-sponsor of S. 1709 (21st Century Glass-Steagall Act of 2015), one tenth of the U.S. Senate is now co-sponsoring the Senate bill to restore Glass-Steagall.
The Hill wrote: “The embrace of Glass-Steagall by both parties is a telling indication of how unpopular Wall Street remains with the public, years after the financial crisis.”
Bloomberg, too, admitted that the Republican Party plank should not come as a “total surprise, given there’s little love of global investment banks in Washington right now.”
Barron’s acknowledged: “The Democrats and Republicans are in agreement on one thing in this presidential election, and of all things, it’s about banking regulations. Both parties, it seems, are calling for a return of Glass-Steagall, a Depression-era banking law whose repeal in 1999 is credited by some for causing the financial crisis.”
Politico quotes two reporters from the Financial Times on how Wall Street is now, “on edge … Presidential candidates do not have to follow party platforms, but big banks will be troubled by the cross-party support for legislation inspired by the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act because such ideas can gain a life of their own once in official documents. Any prohibition barring investment bankers from operating under the same roof as federally insured deposits would pose an existential challenge to Citigroup, JPMorgan, Bank of America, Wells Fargo and, to a lesser extent, Goldman Sachs.”
So, too, Keefe, Bruyette & Woods investment bank’s Brian Gardner issued a note warning that Wall Street should not dismiss the possibility of Glass-Steagall being adopted: “There could be a unique political coalition forming to make changes to Dodd-Frank while at the same time reinstating the old separation between commercial and investment banking…. There is an unappreciated risk that Glass-Steagall might be reimposed in 2017 or 2018 … regardless of who wins the presidential election.”
STRATEGIC WAR DANGER
British Prime Minister Ready To Use Nukes
July 19 (EIRNS)—The House of Commons voted by a large majority of 355 on July 18 to renew Britain’s Trident nuclear deterrent. All of the Conservative Party voted for the renewal along with half of the Labour Party. All of the MPs of the Scottish National Party (SNP), the Liberal Democrats, and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn voted against. About 140 Labour MPs— including leadership challengers Angela Eagle and Owen Smith— voted in favor of renewing Trident. Forty-seven Labour MPs joined Corbyn in voting against Trident; another 41 were absent or abstained.
According to the Guardian, Prime Minister Theresa May made clear during the debate, when challenged by the SNP, that she would authorize a nuclear strike. SNP MP George Kerevan had asked, “Is she personally prepared to authorize a nuclear strike that can kill a 100,000 innocent men, women and children?”
May responded: “Yes. And I have to say to the honorable gentleman, the whole point of a deterrent is that our enemies need to know that we would be prepared to use it, unlike some suggestions that we could have a deterrent but not actually be willing to use it, which seem to come from the Labour Party frontbench.”
Not wanting to leave any doubt about what countries she was prepared to nuke, she said: “What this country needs to do is to recognize that it faces a variety of threats and to ensure we have the capabilities that are necessary and appropriate to deal with each of those threats. Threats from countries such as Russia and North Korea remain very real.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov responded today, “The Kremlin regards these statements with regret. Apparently Mrs. Prime Minister has not yet fully caught up with the course of international affairs. Russia, in fact, is one of the main guarantors of international stability and nuclear security, strategic security, and this is an absolutely indisputable fact.”
Lyndon LaRouche responded to Prime Minister May’s blood-curdling call by saying: “Put the blame on the source—the bloody Queen and everything that goes with her. She’s a Nazi, as the record shows. The entire Hitler program was coordinated with the British System. Get her out.”
Corbyn Opposes Trident, Improves in Polls as Eagle Quits Race for Labour Leader
July 19 (EIRNS)—Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, although he allowed a free vote by Labor MPs on Monday’s vote on the Trident nuclear weapons program, in his speech called for nuclear disarmament, pointing out that the party’s pro-Trident position was under review. His proposal involves at least five options, ranging from complete replacement to disarmament by the 2030s.
Corbyn said the U.K. should follow countries such as South Africa, Libya, Ukraine, Argentina, Brazil, and Kazakhstan, which have shown they are serious about disarmament by giving up their nuclear programs. “It is now time to step up to the plate and move rapidly towards disarmament,” he said.
Despite sustained attacks from partisans of Tony Blair in the Labour Party, Corbyn’s political position in the polls for the expected vote for party leader has soared, especially since Angela Eagle dropped out of the race today, leaving Owen Smith to carry the opposition on behalf of the Blairites. Corbyn’s poll ratings are now 20 points over Smith’s.
Turkey Arrests Pilots Who Shot Down Russian Jet, as Erdogan Says He Is Ready To Cooperate with Iran
July 19 (EIRNS)—Despite the attempted coup, Turkey is moving ahead in the rapprochement process with Russia, and is ready to cooperate with Russia and Iran to establish peace in Syria.
Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag confirmed that the two Turkish pilots who shot down the Russian warplane over Syria in November 2015 are in custody, among those arrested for taking part in the failed July 15 coup. Their arrest and prosecution was one of Russia’s demands for full restoration of ties. The other demand to which Erdogan has acceded was an apology, which he delivered a few weeks ago. Russia had also demanded the arrest of the man who killed the Russian pilot on the ground. This, too, has been done. The most important Russian demand, which Turkey has not yet met, is fully closing the Turkish border with Syria and Iraq, where supplies and fighters are being sent through to the Islamic State and the terrorist opposition to the Syrian government.
Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin are expected to meet in the first week of August, in their first face-to-face meeting since the rapprochement.
Erdogan held a telephone conversation with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on July 18, in which he said Turkey is ready to work towards restoration of peace and stability in the region along with Russia and Iran. Rouhani stated, “Stability and tranquility in Turkey have a positive impact on the atmosphere in the whole region. We have no doubt that tranquility in the Islamic world countries does not suit terrorists and some superpowers.”
It should be noted that it was Putin who was the first major head of state to call Erdogan and offer his support after the coup attempt, and it now seems that Rouhani is the second. Until today, President Barack Obama had not called Erdogan.
COLLAPSING WESTERN FINANCIAL SYSTEM
European Court of Justice Supports Bail-In
July 19 (EIRNS)—In a surprising move, the Luxembourg-based European Court of Justice, the highest court of law in the rotten state of Euroland, ruled today that bail-in is legitimate. The ruling was unexpected, as the general attorney had argued against the bail-in last February, in a case brought by Slovenian depositors who had been deceived into buying junior bonds by their bank, which were then confiscated in a bail-in.
The ruling has implications for Italy, where families own €30 billion-worth of subordinate bonds and where the government was hoping for a favorable verdict to back its requests for suspending bail-in rules. The ruling left a door open by saying that the EU Commission can accept a bank rescue without bail-in in “exceptional circumstances.”
The German government, however, is against this option and thinks that the Commission is too lax. In this context, the Bundesbank issued a proposal to exclude the Commission from future negotiations on bank bailouts, by replacing the Troika (EU Commission, IMF and ECB) with the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), the bailout fund chaired by Klaus Regling and run by a board comprising Eurozone finance ministers. The ESM would become an “independent fiscal authority” over countries applying for bailout. The proposal will probably not be approved, but it indicates that Germany is stiffening its position of not allowing any exception to EU rules.
Lyndon LaRouche dismissed the decision out of hand, as having no legitimacy whatsoever. Neither bail-in or bail-out; the whole game is a swindle which must be cancelled, he said. New laws creating a new system have to be passed.
THE NEW GLOBAL ECONOMIC ORDER
Filipino General: Joint Development of South China Sea Could Make Manila a Starting Point for Maritime Silk Road
July 19 (EIRNS)—Gen. Victor Corpus (ret.) proposed a “win-win” policy for the South China Sea islands dispute with China, based on cooperation, but also warned that China has every reason to defend itself against a possible U.S. nuclear assault. “Talk with China one-on-one with both sides setting aside sovereignty issues first but not surrendering their claims,” Corpus told the Manila Times.
Corpus is known for having defected to the communist insurgency in 1970, then returning to the government in 1976, but then serving 10 years in prison. He later became head of the country’s military intelligence service, then served as Veterans Affairs officer at the Philippine Embassy in Washington.
Corpus pointed to the mutual benefit of jointly developing fishing and mineral resources in the region, but also the potential of “making Manila the easternmost terminal hub of the Maritime Silk Road of the 21st Century that will start in Manila and end up in Madrid.”
Corpus called on China to help the Philippines in developing the Silk Road by modernizing communication systems, ports, airports, expressways and railways, and establishing industrial and manufacturing economic zones.
Most strikingly, he pointed out that China needs to “guard the mainland from U.S. Tomahawk missile attacks from submarines that could annihilate its more than a billion population in only two hours.” He concluded: “So, a win for China is for the Philippines to agree on the status quo, that both countries continue occupying and developing the islands they each maintain at the moment.”
Russian-Japanese Economic Talks Are Proceeding
July 19 (EIRNS)—TASS reported today that Russian Economic Development Minister Alexei Ulyukayev is heading a delegation now in Tokyo to follow up “the historic dialogue,” which Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and President Vladimir Putin began in Sochi, in early May, as Ulyukayev put it. The TASS report makes clear that in the wake of the May summit, there are ongoing follow-up meetings between officials of the two nations, preparing ideas and working out details for the next Putin-Abe meeting planned for September during the Vladivostok Economic Forum.
The Sub-Commission for Trade and Investment of the Russian-Japanese Intergovernmental Commission will meet in Tokyo on July 20, “to help flesh out the plan of several items that Prime Minister Abe and President Putin discussed at their meeting,” Ulyukayev told a group of Japanese business executives this morning. “Given the knotty global situation taking shape now, we seek ways for developing our historical relations, and we must find them.”
Teruo Asada, chairman of the Russian-Japanese Committee for Economic Cooperation, in welcoming the Russian delegation to the breakfast meeting, noted when he had met with Ulyukayev in Moscow a month ago, the Russian Economic Development Minister, “spoke highly of the plan of eight areas of cooperation” that Abe offered Putin in May as possible “pillars for investment. These words sounded inspirational for us,” Asada added.
OTHER
Trans-Pacific Partnership Doomed To Fail without China and India, Says Sri Lankan Prime Minister
July 19 (EIRNS)—Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, during an interview in Singapore with Bloomberg yesterday, said the U.S.-proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is doomed to failure unless it includes China and India. “China is already developing its own systems of trading and bilateral assistance such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB),” and India is the growth engine for the world’s fastest-expanding region, Wickremesinghe said. “The hard fact is that any agreement in Asia must include India and China. You can’t have it outside that; it’s not going to work.”
The prime minister said, that even if TPP was ratified by all its members, which includes Australia, Japan, Singapore and Vietnam, the deal faces failure in the long term unless China and India were involved.
Wickremesinghe made the remarks in Singapore, where he gave the inaugural speech at the Third South Asian Diaspora Convention (SADC), the Daily News of Sri Lanka reported. In his speech, he pointed out that Sri Lanka is currently negotiating the terms of a Free Trade Agreement with Singapore, is already in a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement with India, and that the tripartite agreement has the potential to elevate economic cooperation among the three countries to a new high.
Sri Lanka has extensive economic relations with China as well. An April 2016 joint statement by Prime Ministers Li Keqiang of China and Wickremesinghe of Sri Lanka, during his visit to China, said Sri Lanka shared the interest of China in building the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road for greater economic cooperation, which will be a road of friendship, economic cooperation, social and cultural exchange and connectivity. The two sides will use the development of a 21st Century Maritime Silk Road as an opportunity to further advance infrastructure development, and relations in all areas.
