The Levee Breaks:
2013, a Year of Great Decisions
by Helga Zepp-LaRouche
Noble friend! Where may the peace be started,
Where's the refuge place where freedom flew?
First one century in storm departed,
Then with murder opens up the new.
These opening lines of Schiller's poem "The Advent of the New Century"—based this time on the New Year 2013—come to mind when, given the dramatic changes at year's end, one attempts to conceive of what the new year may bring. One thing is certain: the failure of past policies, both in terms of the strategic situation, and the deregulation of the financial system. In both respects, the dam is bursting.
Among the most important developments at year's end is the announcement of the unholy alliances that the governments of Britain and the United States have concluded, to further the policy of regime change. An investigatory commission of the United Nations on the situation in Syria reported to a press conference in Brussels, which received worldwide attention, that the so-called opposition in Syria now consists of fighters from 29 countries. Media in India, Lebanon, and Russia, as well as countless web portals, covered the fact that the U.S. and U.K. have systematically armed groupings and offshoots of al-Qaeda, in order to put regime change in motion in Libya and Syria. And it turned out that the great "humanitarian intervention" in Libya to remove Qaddafi was, in reality, an action in support of al-Qaeda groups in Benghazi.
In a groundbreaking hearing of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the U.S. Congress about the circumstances that led to the assassination of U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens in Benghazi, Libya, the question of the cooperation of the Obama Administration with the jihadi terrorists in Libya and in Syria was raised for the first time in Congress. Democratic Rep. Brad Sherman of California pointed out that the rebels include elements that are just as bad as those who attacked the consulate in Benghazi, with the clear implication that the U.S. administration is responsible for both disasters. Republican Congressman Ed Royce, likewise from California, held the U.S. administration's clinging to this policy responsible for making Libya a cauldron of weapons, jihadists, and violent ideology today. He cited an article in the New York Times, which reported on the approval of the U.S. administration for arms sales to Qatar as a proxy for the "die-hard jihadi elements in Libya"—weapons that are now spread everywhere, even to Mali and Syria. Republican Congressman Ted Poe of Texas pressed on further, asking whether these weapons were used in the attack on the consulate in Benghazi, and whether they have now been relocated to Syria.
With these developments, Congressional hearings have picked up for the first time on the themes that were brought to the table by Lyndon LaRouche's political action committee (LaRouchePAC), in a report about the cooperation among Saudi, British, and American circles in the Middle East. The consequence of this policy was that terrorist networks were aided, as part of a strategy of confrontation with Russia and China. This dossier was distributed in the days before the hearing to all the major Washington institutions.
No to Unconstitutional Wars
A day earlier, on Dec. 19, there was an equally strategically significant press conference, in which Rep. Walter Jones (R-N.C.) and Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) demanded that President Obama obtain express permission from Congress, as required by the Constitution, before sending American troops to Syria. Other participants in the press conference were Col. Patrick Lang (ret.) and Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer (ret.), both longtime analysts for the Defense Intelligence Agency, as well as the head of the intelligence staff of EIR, Jeffrey Steinberg.
Jones quoted from a letter which he, Rangel, and Reps. Ron Paul (R-Tex.), Mo Brooks (R-Ala.), Michael Michaud (D-Me.), and Justin Amash (R-Mich.) have sent President Obama:
"We are writing to strongly urge you not to once again lead our nation into war without authorization from Congress. Your recent threat of 'consequences' about Syria using chemical weapons is eerily reminiscent of the calls for war with Iraq to deal with their 'weapons of mass destruction.' We would like to remind you that the power to declare war remains vested in the United States Congress. No resolution from the United Nations or NATO can supersede the power carefully entrusted with the representatives of the American people."
Jones continued,
"Iraq was an unnecessary war. The continuation in Afghanistan is unnecessary, and we do not need to get involved in the Syrian situation. Diplomatically? Okay. But let's not jeopardize one soldier, one Marine, one Navy [man], one airman—it's just not worth it."
Rangel passionately emphasized that Congress must assume the responsibility for the lives of young soldiers, and lamented that "it has actually reached the point that Presidents just don't give a darn about the Congress." What should you say to the families when the coffins of the dead come back? Lang and Shaffer pointed out that the U.S. administration has already embarked on the path to war against Syria. (The transcript of the press conference is elsewhere in this issue.)
A statement was also distributed at the press conference from the group Veterans for Peace, opposing military action against Syria. Representative Jones, incidentally, is the author of resolution H.R. 107, which has as its objective the impeachment of any President who initiates military action without the consent of Congress.
At another press conference at the Congress on Dec. 21, Republican Senators John McCain (Ariz.), Lindsay Graham (S.C.), and Kelly Ayotte (N.H.) also demanded clarification of the events in Benghazi, the cover-up of the role of al-Qaeda by the Obama Administration, and especially, the behavior of President Obama himself. In an editorial, the Washington Times, not for the first time, denounced the administration's policy of working with organizations that are classified as terrorist.
The rest of the various investigations boil down to this: We must no longer just harp on the reasons for the lack of security measures, but instead, we must pose the fundamental question of how it could come to such a catastrophic failure of policy, where al-Qaeda and related organizations today have become such a potent terrorist threat to the U.S. and the West.
Target: Money Laundering
The second major issue confronting us in the new year, the deregulation of the financial system, the failure of the policy as such stands exposed. The unmasking of Deutsche Bank as possibly the most criminal bank in Germany is symptomatic; the bank was active everywhere that gambling was going on, whether on the secondary real estate market in the U.S., or through tax evasion, balance-sheet manipulation, the Libor-scandal, or fraud with environmental certificates—and with the added complication of possible money laundering.
One may recall that Josef Ackermann, the former CEO of Deutsche Bank, was the principal advisor to Chancellor Angela Merkel during the financial crisis, and Merkel repeated her policy that there was "no alternative" to rescue packages for the financial sector. As the Civil Rights Solidarity Movement (BüSo) launched its 2008-09 campaign for the introduction of a Pecora Commission to investigate possible criminal behavior in the banking sector, there were several members of the Bundestag who insisted that there was "not even a suspicion" to justify such an investigation.
The American Col. Fletcher Prouty (ret.)—the so-called "Mr. X" in Oliver Stone's film JFK—remarked at the time, that the assassination of the former head of Deutsche Bank, Alfred Herrhausen, by an alleged "third generation" of the Red Army Fraction (whose existence has still not been proven), had the same paradigmatic significance for Germany as the Kennedy assassination did for the United States. He was right, because with the assassination of Herrhausen, a moral person who promoted industry, the floodgates were opened for the above criminal activities—and not only at Deutsche Bank.
Just as the unholy alliance of the Obama Administration with al-Qaeda can no longer be covered up, you also cannot sweep under the rug the largely criminal character of the current financial system, as it has come to light, for example, in the Congressional hearings on HSBC and its involvement in large-scale money-laundering operations for the Mexican narco-syndicates. But the damage caused by the absolute failure of the dominant policy is huge: An entire region, from North Africa to the Middle East, is at war, in chaos, and dominated by terrorist organizations, and there is an intolerable divide between rich and poor, with a potential for social explosion of unprecedented scope.
A reversal is still—hopefully—possible, but it must be done immediately. Without a return to international law and to a people-centered real economy, civilization is at an end. We need the immediate introduction of a two-tier banking system in the tradition of Franklin Roosevelt's Glass-Steagall Act, the introduction of a credit system, and rebuilding of the productive economies of the United States, Europe, and the Middle East—in short, the program for which the LaRouche organizations in Europe and the U.S. have fought for a long time.
Translated from German by Daniel Platt
