PRESS RELEASE
Hand-to-Hand Combat Heightens in Battle To Make JASTA Law, Now
Sept. 22, 2016 (EIRNS)—Leaders of the 9/11 families continued their aggressive lobbying on Capitol Hill on Thursday, holding non-stop meetings with offices in the Senate and the House, with the message: Ensure the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism (JASTA) bill becomes law immediately, over a President Obama veto, if required. Their pressure is being backed up by calls into Congress from constituents around the country, joined by voices of local newspapers, such as the Jacksonville Journal Courier, telling Congress to override a veto.
An overwhelming, bipartisan Congressional override of an Obama veto of JASTA would be a given, were this merely a domestic U.S. fight. But JASTA is a life-and-death issue for the United States’ Anglo-Saudi enemies, as the British Daily Telegraph made explicit in its June 6, 2016 article declaring that JASTA "is a threat to Britain and its intelligence agencies."
Saudi lobbyists held a crisis meeting on Monday on how to head-off JASTA becoming law, and top White House officials met the next day to do the same, the New York Times reported today. White House press spokesman Josh Earnest reiterated, this Thursday afternoon, that Obama will veto JASTA by the Friday deadline, even as the The Hill featured a story about Democratic Congressmen cringing over the damage this Obama veto will wreak upon the Democrats in the upcoming election. Barack Obama is not a Democrat, but a British agent.
The New York Times article, titled "Fight Between Saudis and 9/11 Families Escalates in Washington," put the fight this way:
"On Wednesday, these two powerful forces, one operating in the shadows and the other more in the open, converged on Capitol Hill in the culmination of one of the biggest and most emotional lobbying fights of the year. The battle is a reflection of the enduring dominance in Washington of the 9/11 families and the diminishing clout here of Saudi Arabia, which once advanced its agenda unencumbered in the West Wing and corridors of Congress."
The Saudis had already spent $5 million this past year "to buy influence in Washington," the Times reported. Now they have hired former Senators John B. Breaux (D) and Norm Coleman (R) to lobby against an override, and added "top PR firm" Sphere Consulting—a firm which brags that it specializes in taking "aggressive approaches to crisis situations," most notably for its Wall Street clients fighting criminal charges—"to their already high-powered mix of lobbyists and consultants, including the Podesta Group, DLA Piper, Hogan Lovells and the BGR Group."
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Abdulaziz al-Saud had the chutzpah to call for the United Nations to join in fighting the adoption of JASTA, which he denounced as "a serious threat to the sovereign rights ... a breach of principles established in international law," in his Sept. 21 address to the UN General Assembly.
The European Union backed up the Saudis, sending a scandalous "demarche" to the State Department, which called upon the White House "to act in order to prevent the JASTA bill from becoming law," and, if it does become law, "to act to obtain the stay of proceedings as required" should the law effect "State sovereign immunity." Helga LaRouche commented that for the EU to complain about a loss of sovereignty is a bad joke, given the EU’s systematic destruction of its members’ sovereignty.
Saudi lobbyists made that EU "demarche" public this week, and circulated the widely-reported "open letter" issued by former security/defense officials writing of unnamed dire consequences, "chilling effects," etc., should the law be enacted, according to the New York Times. Lawyers Jack Quinn and Sean Carter, representing the 9/11 families, responded immediately with a letter to the Congress, the Times reported. Their message:
"It is increasingly apparent that these false reciprocity arguments reflect nothing more than a desire to protect the Saudis from having to answer the legitimate claims of the 9/11 families, whose loved ones were murdered on September 11, 2001."
As of this writing, the Senate leadership is set to call a vote to override an Obama veto before the Congressional recess, and Speaker of the House Paul Ryan has said that
"if they pass it, then it’s going to come over here and we’ll pass it.... I do think the votes are there for the override."
But as American statesman Lyndon LaRouche admonished today, "It is clear we have to be a countervailing force" against the British empire forces, and succeed; this is a time when we can win.
