Implikationernene af ‘Dronepapirerne’. v/Jeffrey Steinberg m.fl.
Jeffrey Steinberg og Matthew Ogden gennemgår intrigerne bag torsdagens Benghazi-høring med Hillary Clinton og den fortsatte uenighed og implikationerne af offentliggørelsen af Intercepts »Dronepapirer«. … American Civil Liberty Union har krævet officielle Kongresundersøgelser, især af de utallige civile, der er blevet dræbt som en del af dette program – dette målrettede dræberprogram – der alle er klassificeret under fjendtlig kæmperstatus til trods for det faktum, at der ikke engang er nogen, der kender identiteten af det store flertal af disse mennesker, der blev dræbt.
Jeffrey Steinberg and Matthew Ogden reviewed the machinations behind Thursday’s Benghazi hearing with Hillary Clinton and the continued fall out and implications of the publication of the Intercept’s “The Drone Papers.”
MATTHEW OGDEN: Good evening. It’s October 23, 2015. My name is Matthew Ogden, and I would like to welcome you to our weekly broadcast here of the LaRouche PAC Friday night webcast. I’m joined in the studio tonight by Jeffrey Steinberg from Executive Intelligence Review, and we’re here to deliver the message that Mr. LaRouche had to deliver when we met with him earlier this morning; only a matter of hours ago. Now, last week, for those of you who watched this broadcast, we discussed in depth the content of the so-called “Drone Papers,” which were published by Glenn Greenwald’s publication, The Intercept, along with Jeremy Scahill last week. And based on documents that were leaked or were provided to The Intercept by a whistleblower, a second Edward Snowden, from within the drone program itself. The content of those papers is horrifying, to say the least; but the implications of the release of the Drone Papers are continuing to resonate. And the effect is continuing to grow; especially as pertains to Barack Obama, who has presided over this policy during the extent of his entire Presidency. The ACLU has called for official Congressional investigations, especially into the innumerable number of civilians that have been killed as a part of this program — this targeted killing program — who are all classified under enemy combatant status, despite the fact nobody even knows the identities of the vast majority of these people who were killed. And there’s also a press release that has been published and released by former Senator Mike Gravel and also former Democratic Presidential candidate from the 2008 Presidential primaries. This press release was published on the LaRouche PAC website, as well as Executive Intelligence Review, and is available. And again, Senator Gravel takes this directly to the point; that this is the murderous policy of the current President, President Barack Obama.
Now, this is what the subject of our institutional question is for this week; and we’re going to begin by reading the text of that question, and then I’m going to ask Jeff to deliver Mr. LaRouche’s response, plus a little bit more additional background. So, the question reads as follows: “Mr. LaRouche, some officials within the Obama administration believe that the drone program is key to fighting the war against global terrorism. Others believe that the program is a clear violation of the US Constitution, and of international law. Please give us your assessment of the legal issues involved in the drone issue.”
JEFFREY STEINBERG: Thanks, Matt. As Matt said, we had a very extensive discussion with both Lyndon and Helga LaRouche earlier today; and I’ll get into some of the more legal issues that are on the table here, but I first want to just read you some things that are not quite verbatim quotes, but very clearly reflect the major thrust of Mr. LaRouche’s response to this question.
First, he said, were it not for the recent actions of Russian President Vladimir Putin, humanity as a whole may already have been lost. And this is clearly reflected in the British and Obama policies that came very close to triggering global conflagration, whether over the Ukraine situation or Syria. On the specific issues of the drone policy, what Mr. LaRouche said is if Obama is allowed to run loose, even on a reduced basis, it poses a grave danger to mankind. He gets by with murder; he’s a satanic figure, and he’s already been allowed to complete two terms in office. And furthermore, he is still killing people. The United States, under first Bush and now Obama, has become an unsafe nation with no competent leadership. Obama must be kicked out of office quickly, and Wall Street has to be shut down. If Wall Street is shut down, we can save the USA; but so long as Wall Street maintains its grip over the US economy, we’re doomed.
And Mr. LaRouche made direct reference to the personal aspects of President Obama, which he’s been identifying and actively discussing since the very early months of the Obama Presidency; precisely since April 11, 2009, when he delivered an international webcast and warned that the President had the personality of Emperor Nero. Someone, who had a severe narcissist disorder, and that this would pose a grave danger to the country and the world, if it went unchecked. Now, I think we briefly discussed last week, the fact that we know that one of the defining influences on President Obama during his early formative years when he was a preteen, was his stepfather in Indonesia; who himself was a real killer. He was brought back from graduate studies in Hawaii to participate in the Suharto coup and the mass bloodletting that followed. And there was household brutality, both directed against Obama’s mother and against young Barack Obama personally. These things have deep and enduring, scarring impact; and so much of the personality of the stepfather rubbed off on Obama. And we’re seeing the consequences of that in this drone policy.
I call all of your attention to the fact that in 2012, two reporters — I believe from Time magazine — published a book-length account of the 2012 Presidential elections. The book was published in 2013. And what they recounted was a conversation that President Obama had with some senior White House aides; it was after one particular incident in his long line of drone killings, where Anwar al-Awlaki — a US citizen — was killed in Yemen in a drone strike. Now, one could debate al-Awlaki’s role as a figure within al-Qaeda, and there are many things that could be said, but are not relevant to the topic here. The point is that an American citizen, by order of President Obama, was murdered in cold blood by a drone attack signed off on by the President; but as an American citizen, al-Awlaki was deprived of any due process. Now, mass murderers are subject to due process, to fair trials; but in this case, because he was on Obama’s kill list, despite the fact that he was an American citizen, he was murdered. Several weeks later, his 16-year old son was murdered, along with yet another American citizen, in drone attacks in Yemen. And, while the administration claimed that the murder of the son was not intended, but was a consequence of targeting others, it remains the fact that at least three now — I’m sure many more — American citizens have been murdered overseas by President Obama.
So, in this incident that’s recounted in the book by these two Time magazine reporters, Obama is quoted telling one of his close aides — boasting in fact — that it “Turns out I’m really a quite good, effective, killer. I never thought that I was going to emerge as a great killer, but here I am.” In the ensuing two years since the book was published, to my knowledge there have been no attempts by the White House to deny the accuracy of those quotes. They’ve attempted to explain it away, and complain instead about the fact that there are too many leaks coming out of the inner circle, but nobody has outright said that that was not Obama’s statement, those were not his words. So, you’re dealing with somebody, who clearly has the pathology of a killer.
Now, a week and a half ago, the German Bundestag, soon after the release of the “Drone Papers,” held hearings in which they brought two American former drone pilots to testify, and those hearings were serious and substantial. And, yet, here we are, two weeks after the release of the “Drone Papers,” and there’s not been a public hearing; there has not been a word to speak of, from any members of Congress. We know that there’s pressure from ourselves, from groups like the ACLU, for some kind of congressional hearings, but the fact of the matter is, that the dis-functionality of the two political parties, and the dis-functionality of Congress as the result of that, has meant that President Obama has literally been able to get away with murder, and continues to do so, right up to this moment.
So, the fact of the matter is, that the drone program, as we’ve now been given a very in-depth window into it, through the House Intelligence Committee’s review of the Executive Branch procedures — of the various Obama guidelines on how to manage the drone program — we know that none of these things have actually worked; that this is a reckless, “Murder, Inc.” operation, that violates a 1975 ban, signed by President Gerald Ford, against assassination. And the fact that these assassinations are simply referred to as “targeted killings,” does nothing to mitigate the fact that President Obama has been guilty of mass-murder. And there’s an entire structure of government that is complicit in that process. And the guilt spreads beyond the U.S. borders, and becomes clearly another clear bit of evidence that President Obama has been, from the very outset and remains to this moment, a British agent. Mr. LaRouche pointed to the specific role of Valerie Jarrett as one of the key British agents within the Obama inner circle. But let’s look a bit further at the testimony that was delivered before the German Bundestag. What one of the two drone pilots testified, was that there’s an entire international network that has all been involved in working up the targeting information, and feeding in key data to facilitate the mass-murder operations that are carried out under this drone program. In particular, there is a working intelligence-sharing alliance, known as “Five Eyes.” These are the national intelligence services, the technical intelligence services, of the United States — in this case, the National Security Agency — the services of Canada, Great Britain, Australia, and New Zealand. In other words, four countries: Great Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, which are not just simply members of the British Commonwealth, but are countries where Queen Elizabeth II is the Sovereign; where in each case, those countries are run by a privy council that is appointed by, and reports directly back to the British Monarchy, in this case Queen Elizabeth.
So, you have the United States and the British Monarchy participating as a single, seamless entity, in gathering the targeting data that has been used in this mass drone killing program which began right at the very outset of the Obama Presidency.
And, again, what we heard in the Bundestag testimony, and we’re yet to see a moment of congressional hearings on this, up to this moment, is that those five agencies, with other assistance — the German Federal Intelligence Service (BND) was involved in this program as well. They’ve developed the technique to use the GPS functions on cell phones to track down the exact locations of where a particular cell phone is, at any given moment, and in fact, the drone kill program targets cell phones, which have been “associated” with people on the kill list. But the ability to verify that the person holding that cell phone, at the moment, that the drone strike takes place, is the actual target, is something that doesn’t function. There’s very little evidence that there has been much consideration about whether or not they’re even going after the right targets.
So, in effect, we’re dealing with an even more out-of-control drone program, where all of the guidelines that were established by President Obama and the administration, at the very beginning, for how to conduct the drone warfare, fully implemented, it would not make any difference, from the standpoint that these are war crimes, and crimes against humanity, and represent instances of mass murder. The fact of the matter is, that even those limited guidelines — for example, if an individual can be captured and interrogated, rather than killed, that’s preferable — well, throw that out the window right away. There’s never been any effort, once you’re on the kill list, you are a target, and, within a 60-day period, if feasible, you will be gone after, and you will be dead, or perhaps someone else at that moment carrying your cell phone, will be dead.
So, the program is absolutely unconstitutional, is a clear violation of the UN Charter, and is not only illegal and should be the basis for President Obama’s immediate removal from office, but let’s go one step further. There should be no presidential immunity from criminal prosecution, whether in U.S. Federal Court, or in The Hague, for these heinous crimes. Now, the bankruptcy of the U.S. governing institutions, the failure of Congress to instantly take up this issue, the failure of the federal courts to act against this drone program in a decisive way, has meant that the prospect of justice under this situation right now in the United States, is gravely impeded.
So, what do we find out? In Germany, Somali family members and Yemeni family members of individuals killed in the drone warfare have filed lawsuits against both the German and American governments. There’s no attempt to get at justice in the U.S. court system, because of how badly the whole structure’s been corrupted since George W. Bush, and even more so under Obama. So, the situation is that families seeking justice are going to the federal courts in Germany, in Cologne, and are filing against the German and U.S. governments. The German government is clearly complicit in this. The Ramstein Air Force base is one of the major hubs of the U.S. drone operations, and it’s being done with the complicity and cooperation of the German government.
How far does it go? When we looked at the Bush administration’s illegal renditions and torture program, it took a long time to get to the bottom of it, and find out how many countries were complicit and were cooperating in this crime against humanity and war crime. So we’re dealing here with a matter of a bankruptcy and a failure of institutions to live up to their Constitutional responsibilities. And that’s where you, the American people, have an enormous amount of responsibility. The evidence against President Obama and the chain of command that he sits on top of in this drone mass-murder program is cut and dry. It’s been known for a long time, but now with the release of this hundred-plus page House Intelligence Committee review of the program, which contains previously-unpublicized details, the book of evidence is there. This President should be immediately removed from office. The crimes that are evidenced in this documentation alone go vastly beyond the crimes of Richard Nixon, that resulted in his forced resignation. Nixon was facing impeachment, was facing the activation of the 25th Amendment at the time that he wisely decided to resign. We’re in a situation, that is far more advanced and far more grave now, than we faced under Nixon back in the early 1970s. So it’s up to you to make sure that our institutions of government begin to function, and if we can achieve that, then this President will be removed from office, and the dangers associated with his continuing on the job, including the danger of thermonuclear war, will at last be removed.
OGDEN: Thank you very much, Jeff. Let me just follow up what we’ve begun to discuss here. As I’m sure most of you are aware of, the hearing of the Benghazi Select Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives took place yesterday, at which Hillary Clinton was called as a witness. This has certainly been a central focus of attention for a number of months now, leading up into this hearing. However, after literally hours upon hours of questioning of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, hardly any of the Congressmen, in either party, managed to get at the true issues. There were significant questions that were raised, certainly. However, even those who did raise those questions, for the most part failed to pursue their lines of questioning to the necessary and actually relevant conclusions.
First of all, why does Hillary Clinton continue to insist on covering up for Obama’s role in directly ordering her, on the night of the Benghazi attacks, to lie about the events that occurred that night — even though it’s been proven multiple times that she knew exactly what was really going on, that there was clearly, this was clearly a pre-meditated attack against a U.S. Government compound on the anniversary of September 11th, carried out by jihadist militants, as opposed to the made-up story that was then echoed several days later by Susan Rice, of a spontaneous demonstration in response to a video denigrating the Prophet Mohammed. Why does Hillary continue to cover up for the fact that Obama directly ordered her to lie?
And secondly and maybe even more significantly in a broad sense, where did the policy that led to the events that night in Benghazi even come from? As former Chairman of the House Permanent — or the House Select Committee on Intelligence, Congressman Peter Hoekstra, identifies correctly, in a book which he just released earlier this month, titled Architects of Disaster — The Destruction of Libya, the entire thing ultimately is Obama’s fault, in the continuing takeover of Libya, Iraq, and now parts of Syria, by these terrorist groups — ISIS and related — including those who attacked the compound that night in Benghazi, September 11, 2012, this is all a direct consequence of the decision that was made by Obama to invade Libya, to overthrow a sitting sovereign government, and to kill former President Muammar Qaddafi in cold blood. And, as Congressman Hoekstra makes the point, Qaddafi was our ally in the war on radical jihadist terrorism — very reminiscent of the policy now being carried out by Obama against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, today, exactly the same scenario. Makes you wonder where Obama’s true allegiances lie.
Now, as I said, the majority of the members of Congress who had the opportunity to question Hillary Clinton during the Benghazi hearing yesterday completely failed to address these two crucial points. But, virtually simultaneously with the hearing taking place on Capitol Hill yesterday, in Russia, in Sochi, Russian President Vladimir Putin was addressing a gathering of the Valdai international discussion club in Sochi, and he did address precisely these issues, in very direct terms, denouncing Obama’s policy in Libya and in Syria, of supporting and arming the very terrorists that we’re supposed to be fighting against in the interest of using them to overthrow yet another sitting president, the government of Assad. And in addition, President Putin addressed the even broader question of the generally imperialistic outlook now being typified by Barack Obama, which is leading mankind right now to the very real danger of total self-destruction through global nuclear war.
What Putin started his speech by focusing on, was the question of the history of the fundamental notions of war and peace themselves. He said it’s a proper subject for a Russian president to address, since Leo Tolstoy wrote a book called War and Peace. But he said that for centuries, the concept of peace had been based on the notion of the balance of power, for better or for worse. But now, in a world of nuclear arms, and thermonuclear arms, he said, the traditional ideas of peace from this standpoint can no longer function. We need a new concept, a new paradigm, a post-war, at least, vision. He said any major war today would not bring victory to either party, but would only end in the guarantee of mutual total destruction. The only thing that’s protected humanity from this terrible fate, he said, over the last 70 years, are the principles of international law that were established under the framework of the United Nations following the Second World War, as well as the general sobriety and self-control of those leaders who have found themselves operating on a global stage, such as during the Cuban Missile Crisis with President John F. Kennedy. However, he said, now we’ve reached a point where some powers are pursuing a model of unilateral domination of the planet, and the danger that a military situation may get out of control, and just such a mutually-destructive nuclear war be unleashed, has now become all too real. And the emergence of the doctrine of what he called the disarming first strike — be it nuclear or even non-nuclear — has further skewed this postwar balance of power and the system of international law, which has protected mankind since the end of World War II, and has further increased the possibility of the outbreak of a devastating global conflict. And he said, there are those who possess the illusion that there exists the possibility of victory in such a world conflict, without the irreversible, unacceptable consequences that would follow such a nuclear war. So for this reason, he said, you’ve seen a general weakening of the underlying psychological aversion to the idea of war itself, which has gripped previous generations; and the very perception of war has been changed, turned into an almost media entertainment. As if, he said, nobody actually dies in a conflict; as if people do not suffer and cities and entire states are not destroyed. But this is the reality of war.
It’s very significant, as I think Mr. LaRouche has pointed out previously, for President Putin, whose family died and suffered in the siege of Leningrad, the realities of what war means are much more real than what are generally held by those such as the American generation of an Obama or some sort. But I just want to read one quote from what President Putin had to say, just to bring this to the point of what necessarily needs to be addressed when we look at the background of what has brought us to this point. This is a quote; he said, “Why is it that the efforts of say our American partners and their allies in their struggle against the so-called ‘Islamic State’, has not produced any tangible results? Obviously, it’s not for lack of military equipment or capability. It goes without saying that the United States has a huge potential; the biggest military potential in the world. However, it is impossible to play a double game; to declare war on terrorists, and simultaneously try to use some of those same terrorists to arrange the pieces on the chessboard in the Middle East according to what you perceive as your own interests. It is impossible,” he said, “to combat terrorism in general, if some terrorists are used as a battering ram to overthrow the regimes, that are not to one’s liking. You cannot get rid of those terrorists. It is only an illusion that you can come in and get rid of them later; clean up the mess. To take the power away from them, or reach some sort of negotiated agreement with them. And the situation in Libya,” he said, “is the best example of this.”
So, as I said, this really goes directly to the point here. If you’re serious about fighting to eliminate the danger of global terrorism, then perhaps you should stop arming and supporting the very same terrorists who you claim to be fighting against in the interest of using them to overthrow sovereign governments that are not to your liking. And to me this seems to be a somewhat more reasonable approach than running a drone program that ends up just killing a majority of innocent civilians; or perhaps releasing the 28 pages, documenting the role of the Saudis in supporting the 9/11 hijackers would be a good place to start as well.
But while Putin has made it clear that Obama’s policies in Libya were not exactly what they expected when they supported the UN resolution, this disastrous consequence that has taken place as a result of that invasion and that regime-change operation, is definitely not a mistake that Putin is going to let happen again in the case of Syria. And thus, we see the crucial and decisive actions that have been taken in the recent weeks in what’s being characterized by some as President Putin’s third Chechen war; because of the extent of the overlap and the interconnection between those whom Putin successfully fought against in Chechnya in 1999, and those who he is now fighting in Syria today, among the Islamic State and otherwise.
So, Jeff, I know that Mr. LaRouche has put significant emphasis on the importance of this historical view of the current situation during our discussion with him earlier today. And this is the type of background which he — Mr. LaRouche — has a very unique view of, due to his experience and his personal role that he played as a central figure that he played throughout much of this history. So, while many people have a tendency, including in the US Congress itself, to exhibit a very short-sighted and shallow insight into these types of questions — including even the questions concerning the current Benghazi investigation — maybe you could give a little bit of a deeper background and insight into what the true questions are that are at hand; along the lines of what President Putin was indicating in his speech.
STEINBERG: You’ve got to start from the standpoint of understanding the British factor, the British problem, and how that has impacted on the sweep of recent history. And it requires getting away from the idea that history is a string of successive events; these are processes, these are dynamics, and there are certain cardinal events that fundamentally alter the direction of history. And these are the things that people really have to grapple with to be able to really sort out and made sense of the deep, profound crisis that we’re going through right now. I think you’ve got to start from the fact — and this was a major subject of our discussion with Lyn and Helga LaRouche earlier today. You’ve got to start with at least a modicum of a sweep of recent history.
The fact is, that the last time that we had a viable and effective Presidency was with Ronald Reagan. And there were many caveats that have to be identified in terms of the Reagan Presidency. There was intention on the part of Reagan and on the part of an inner circle of close advisors and collaborators going into the 1980 Presidency — the elections and then Reagan’s inauguration in January 1981 — to fundamentally change the direction of US policy. We had been through a turbulent period of the 1970s; the watergating of Nixon, the end of Vietnam, the emergence of a Trilateral Commission government that brought us to the brink of nuclear war in the 1970s. The policy of that government and of the Council on Foreign Relations to being a process of controlled disintegration of the U.S. and world economy.
All of these had already taken place; and this was the backdrop to the beginning of a critical collaboration between Mr. LaRouche and President Reagan. There was a convergence of thinking and commitment to restore the American tradition; and to do it by presenting Presidential leadership. And it was in that context that on a number of leading issues, the leading one in particular being the LaRouche-Reagan collaboration on what came to be known as the Strategic Defense Initiative [sdi]. That was a shaping directionality for a sweeping change in the US Presidency and particularly in the major US global relations. There was a very real prospect with the LaRouche-Reagan-Edward Teller and other collaboration around the idea of a joint Strategic Defense Initiative between the United States and the Soviet Union, with allied countries from both blocs involved, to bring an end to the threat of thermonuclear war. Reagan doggedly pursued that, even in spite of the fact that within his first 100 days in office, there was a serious assassination attempt against him. And of course, many of you may recall that that assassin, John Hinckley, came from a family that was intimately associated with the Bush family. So, right from the outset, within that first 100 days, Ronald Reagan was gravely wounded; he survived and, in fact, did continue in the Presidency. And the high water mark of that was the SDI policy. Reagan had also intended to make a dramatic break with Wall Street that was symbolized by the fact that he and some of his Kitchen Cabinet advisors were in depth involved in discussion with Mr. LaRouche over firing Paul Volcker and fundamentally changing the whole nature of the Federal Reserve System. And this became an issue that was a matter of outright warfare between Wall Street and London on the one side, and the Reagan inner circle on the other. The Reagan assassination attempt greatly weakened the Reagan Presidency and paved the way for George HW Bush to emerge as more and more of a dominant figure in the Reagan Presidency. They were never able to dissuade Reagan from pursuing the Strategic Defense Initiative that he had worked out with LaRouche; but nevertheless, Reagan was weakened, and many things that were promised at the outset of the Reagan Presidency were never able to materialize because of British interference. And that included the fact that British agent Yuri Andropov came into power in the Soviet Union and put the kibosh on the SDI collaboration. The entire effort against Wall Street and against the policies of the Fed, were basically shut down at the point that Reagan was shot, and had to go through a prolonged period of recuperation. So, you had a real Presidency with Reagan, despite the Bush factor, and despite the consequences of the assassination attempt. And there was a period of four years or so where on a number of policy issues, there was a Reagan-LaRouche cooperation; many of the details of which are frankly yet to come out in public.
We had the Bush 41 Presidency that was a disaster. LaRouche was railroaded into Federal prison; and for all practical purposes was expected to die in Federal prison. And that would have very likely happened had Bush been elected to a second term in office. What happened, however, was that Bush was defeated for re-election; and Bill Clinton came in. And there was a level of collaboration once again with the Presidency; there was potential with the Clinton Presidency to revive some of the core ideas that had been running through the Reagan Presidency, and reflected back earlier on the successful Presidencies of John Kennedy and before that, obviously, Franklin Roosevelt. But, Clinton ran up against a buzz saw. The British launched literally warfare against the Clinton Presidency; they manipulated the First Lady to be a factor that further disrupted. You had the factor of Al Gore as Vice President; which was as bad a choice as George Herbert Walker Bush was for Ronald Reagan. So, in effect, the Clinton Presidency never lived fully up to its potential; and towards its concluding year, at the point that Clinton was about to make a significant move against the preponderant system of London offshore global finance, he was gone after. He was set up; his Presidency was destroyed. He went through House impeachment, and at the end of the day, Clinton made the gravest mistake of his political career, by signing the bill that repealed Glass-Steagall.
Now, what’s happened since that point, with the George W Bush Presidency for eight years, and then now with the Obama Presidency already for seven years, is that the British have been in the driver’s seat in the White House throughout that 15-year period. And so, what President Putin identified correctly in his Valdai speech, needs to be fleshed out much further. It’s got to be understood that there has been effectively a British-Wall Street takeover of the Executive branch of the US government. It’s come to be completely dominant over the Republican Party and over the Obama wing of the Democratic Party.
So, if you step back and realize that the entire history of the United States has been a struggle against the British Empire, then you get an idea from a much deeper historical appreciation of how this process, how this dynamic has played out and brought us to the point that we’ve reached right now. Now, there are other examples that come up throughout history; even the history of the shaping events that established the American republic, its character, and the war against the British. At the very beginning of the 18th Century, you had a giant of a figure; one of the key figures who revived the entire Renaissance tradition in Europe, namely Gottfried von Leibniz. Leibniz was a key player in European political affairs. His interests extended to an extensive understanding and appreciation of China and of the commonalities between Confucianism and Western Christianity. He was moving to establish control over Britain to dismantle the empire system that was beginning to come into existence at that time. And it was with the death of Leibniz — and there were people waiting breathlessly to confirm that indeed he was dead. But with his confirmed death about 20 years into the 18th Century, that’s when the British Empire took off. Leibniz had been instrumental as an adviser in the British court, to establishing some of the key players who shaped and framed the United States; some of the leading governors who were sent over as Royal Governors from England during the period of Leibniz’s influence in London. You had Spotswood in Virginia; you had Hunter in New York. These were leading international republican figures, who were part of the Leibniz networks. Franklin was a student of Leibniz’s writings, and traveled to Europe in the 1750s to obtain access to some otherwise difficult to obtain writings of Leibniz. But Leibniz’s death was one of those cardinal moments in history that framed events that moved forward from there; just as there was a concerted move coming from the worst elements of the European oligarchy to crush the influence of the Golden Renaissance.
So, these kinds of critical historical events, which are really reflective of long-term processes, are the big challenge to be understood. If you’re going to shape history and define a viable future for mankind, then it’s very helpful to know from an historical standpoint, who are your friends and who are your enemies. In January of 1981, in fact on the day of Ronald Reagan’s inauguration, Executive Intelligence Review, Mr. LaRouche’s flagship publication, issued a warning forecasting that there would be an attempt to assassinate President Reagan within his first 100 days in office. This was not based on some kind of footprints of would-be assassins; but it was based on an understanding that the Reagan election represented a potential break from British control over the US Presidency that had been a dominant factor since the assassination of John F Kennedy.
We knew that at critical moments, the British have assassinated American Presidents in order to prevent break-out of the United States as a proper republican leader of the world. You had it take place early on, not with a President, but with a giant of the American Constitutional republic, Alexander Hamilton; who was assassinated by an undisputed British agent, Aaron Burr. You had the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, which doesn’t even need any further elaboration; it was a British assassination carried out by Confederate networks, but operating out of British intelligence centers, including Montreal, Canada. You had the assassination of President McKinley, who was reviving the Lincoln-Hamilton tradition at a critical moment; and was pushing back against British imperial operations. His assassination brought Teddy Roosevelt, the favorite nephew of one of the heads of the Confederate Secret Service — headquartered in London — into the Presidency. You had the assassination of Kennedy; a British assassination, for again, reasons that are too obvious to have to deal with in any detailed explanation here.
So, it was on the basis of that knowledge and understanding of the sweep of the US fight against the British Empire forces in the world, that drove us to issue a warning that there would be an attempt to assassinate President Reagan because of what he represented as a best hope for a return of the United States to its historic mission and its historic tradition and policy. We were, unfortunately, correct. It was about the 90th day of the Reagan Presidency that John Hinckley carried out the assassination attempt; and while Reagan survived it, it weakened the potentiality of the Reagan Presidency.
So, you’ve got to look at those kinds of historical processes and dynamics, and think through how these events play out. If you want to understand Benghazi, you can’t start on September 11th of 2012; you’ve got to go back to the fact that a British policy that was coordinated with rotten elements in France — the same elements that were directly involved in the attempts to assassinate President Charles de Gaulle a decade or two earlier — those elements, along with Obama. British directly, Anglo-French forces and Obama, decided to bring down Qaddafi and to unleash absolute Hell throughout North Africa and into the Middle East. Where were the weapons that fueled the Islamic State and the Nusra and other insurgencies in Syria coming from? They were coming from Benghazi; they were coming from the Libya that became an absolute Hell on Earth. An absolutely ungovernable area, because the British — with their French and Obama underlings — got rid of Qaddafi to unleash this process. To unleash a state of permanent warfare across the entire North African and Middle East and really the entire Islamic world.
So, if you don’t understand that British factor, it’s very difficult to understand why we are in the crisis that we’re in. If you understand that dynamic, and you understand that Obama — like Bush before him — was effectively a British agent; then you understand why it is an imperative that Obama is removed from office, and that the other major center of British influence in the United States — namely Wall Street, which is completely, irreversibly, unrepentantly bankrupt, has to be shut down. And that this is an urgent matter of life and death for the survival of our nation and for the world as a whole.
Putin understands the broad dynamics; he’s got to even further understand the real nature of the enemy. The enemy resides principally in London; and it’s the London controls and strings that are pulled in Washington, that are the major problem here in the United States. As LaRouche said in our discussion earlier, get rid of Wall Street; remove Obama from office. And that eliminates much of the British influence, the destructive influence, over the United States. Then we’ve got a shot at rebuilding the world and forging the kinds of alliances that are waiting for us: the BRICS alliance; the collaboration with Russia on bringing an end to this bloodshed and horror show throughout the Middle East and North Africa. The opportunities are all there, but step one is Obama must be removed. And now the book of evidence is there; it’s irrefutable, and Congress has to act. And secondly, Wall Street has to be shut down, cold; no compensation. Wall Street goes down; we put back Glass-Steagall, and learn the playbook of Franklin Roosevelt on how to rebuild an economy. If we can do those things, we’re in fine shape; the world is in fine shape. But if those actions aren’t taken right now, then we’re all in grave danger.
OGDEN: Thank you very much, Jeff. And what I want to do to conclude tonight’s broadcast with, is to read something which I think sums up in very cogent terms what Jeff just concluded with. And this is the Presidential policy statement from Lyndon LaRouche that was issued on this website earlier this week. And what Mr. LaRouche says in this, which he issued following the Democratic debate, what he calls “A Brief Statement on the Nature of Our Current National Crisis; and the Proper Framework for Approaching This Vital Presidential Election” is the following; and I’m just going to read it verbatim, from the beginning of where he makes the points about what actions must be taken. He says:
“First, the defining issue for today is the fact that Wall Street is hopelessly, irreversibly bankrupt, and there can be no serious improvement in the conditions of life for the vast majority of Americans until Wall Street is shut down altogether. The first and most immediate remedy for the bankruptcy of Wall Street is the reinstating of Glass-Steagall.
“The simple truth is that an honest appraisal of the disastrous collapse of real productivity in the US economy is that a large and growing majority of our fellow citizens are facing job loss, starvation, collapse of genuine health care services, the destruction of the educational system and an overall disintegration of basic infrastructure. This has accelerated under the Barack Obama Presidency, but it began before that, particularly during the George W. Bush terms in office.
“Any attempt to dodge this fundamental truth during the now ongoing presidential campaigns, by appealing to ‘issues’ or populist slogans, dooms the United States to total destruction in the very short term period ahead.
“Wall Street must be shut down totally. The entire Wall Street system is bankrupt. It must be ended. Then, we must do what Franklin Roosevelt did to overcome the Great Depression. Today, we face an even greater challenge, due, in part, to the decades of collapse of the productive powers of labor in this nation. Shut down Wall Street now, reinstate Glass-Steagall as a means of reconstituting viable commercial banking, and then begin a program of Federal credit to revive the productive economy, through capital investment in infrastructure and other vital programs. We must begin to reverse the collapse of our industrial economy, and we must train a new generation of young people to develop the skills to function in a modern, technology-intensive growing economy.
“This is what the 2016 presidential candidates must address. Any attempt to divert from this essential agenda is tantamount to surrendering to Wall Street and those who would see the United States disintegrate altogether.
“A segment of the American people, horrified by the clown show of last week, is demanding nothing less. Any candidate who fails to meet this standard does not belong in the race. This is not a popularity contest or a test of who can best pander to the worst pragmatic impulses of a beaten-down and terrified public. This is an election that will determine whether or not the United States still has the moral fitness to survive.
“I hear the American people crying out for a future minus the scourge of Wall Street. They deserve nothing less.”
And with that, I would like to thank everybody for watching our broadcast here tonight, and bring a conclusion to this webcast. Thank you very much. Thank you, Jeff, for joining me in the studio. And please stay tuned to larouchepac.com.