by Jeffrey Steinberg

Just hours after terrorists staged an assault on the Paris offices of the satirical publication Charlie Hebdo and killed a dozen people, former U.S. Senator Bob Graham (D-Fla.) joined House of Representatives Members Walter Jones (R-N.C.), Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.), and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), and representatives of the 9/11 families, in a Capitol Hill press conference, convened to demand the immediate release of the 28-page chapter from the original 2002 Joint Congressional Inquiry into 9/11, which documented the role of the Saudi Royal Family in financing the hijackers.

Sen. Graham's words are even more profound and timely today, in the wake of the Nov. 13 Paris massacres by Islamic State-allied butchers. Graham told the standing-room only crowd:

The Saudis know what they did. They are not persons who are unaware of the consequences of their government's actions. Second, the Saudis know that we know what they did! Somebody in the Federal government has read these 28 pages, someone in the Federal government has read all the other documents that have been covered up so far. And the Saudis know that.

What would you think the Saudis' position would be, if they knew what they had done, they knew that the United States knew what they had done, and they also observed that the United States had taken a position of either passivity, or actual hostility to letting those facts be known? What would the Saudi government do in that circumstance, which is precisely where they have been for more than a decade?

Well, one, they have continued, maybe accelerated, their support for one of the most extreme forms of Islam, Wahhabism, throughout the world, particularly in the Middle East. And second, they have supported their religious fervor, with financial and other forms of support of the institutions which were going to carry out those extreme forms of Islam. Those institutions have included mosques, madrassas, and the military. Al-Qaeda was a creature of Saudi Arabia; the regional groups such as al-Shabaab have been largely creatures of Saudi Arabia; and now, ISIS is the latest creature!

Yes, I hope and I trust that the United States will crush ISIS, but if we think that is the definition of victory, we are being very naive! ISIS is a consequence, not a cause-it is a consequence of the spread of extremism, largely by Saudi Arabia, and if it is crushed, there will be another institution established, financed, supported, to carry on the cause.

So the consequences of our passivity to Saudi Arabia, have been that we have tolerated this succession of institutions,-violent, extreme, extremely hurtful to the region of the Middle East, and a threat to the world, as we saw this morning in Paris.

Sen. Graham was absolutely right on Jan. 7. His words now take on even greater significance, as the entire world is still in shock over the Friday events in Paris, and the prospect that it can happen again.

It Can Happen Again

ISIS has already issued a new threat of similar blind terror attacks, this time targeting Washington, D.C. and other American cities. The Russian government, after a careful investigation, has concluded, as of Nov. 17, that the Metro Jet plane that blew up over Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, was downed by a terrorist bomb planted on board. ISIS has claimed credit for that atrocity, in which 224 people were killed. ISIS also took credit for a pair of suicide bombings in southern Beirut on Nov. 12, which killed and wounded hundreds of innocents.

Sen. Graham is absolutely right. ISIS is a consequence of Saudi promotion of Wahhabism and violent jihadi terrorism. To be more precise, Al Qaeda, the Islamic State, the Nusra Front and other terrorist groupings are products of an Anglo-Saudi alliance, most publicly associated with the Al Yamamah arms-for-oil barter deals between London and Riyadh. Al Yamamah created an offshore slush fund for terrorism that directly fed Al Qaeda, from the start of that sinister deal in the 1980s.

The shock of the Paris attacks has forced the Obama Administration, for the moment at least, to abandon its hate campaign against Russia and President Putin, and at least formally accept the urgency of collaboration with Moscow to crush the Islamic State.

Now it is time for a reckoning with the Anglo-Saudi apparatus that has been steering the growth of the global jihadist apparatus, through decades of funding and logistical support.

It is time to release the full 28 pages from the Joint Congressional Inquiry into 9/11. The release of those 28 pages should be the start of a thorough, top-down investigation into the role of the Saudi Monarchy in promoting global terrorism, starting with full disclosure of the Saudi role in the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Time for a Reckoning

Congress must not tolerate one more moment of White House cover-up of those 28 pages. The Joint Inquiry was a legislative branch investigation, and the Congress has total authority to release the 28 pages, whether the White House goes along or not. The 1971 U.S. Supreme Court unanimous ruling in the case of then-Senator Mike Gravel (D-Alaska), who placed the Pentagon Papers into the Congressional Record under the "speech and debate" clause of the Constitution, makes clear that Congress has the Constitutional authority to declassify those pages immediately.

While it is known that those pages provide details of how the Saudi General Intelligence Directorate supported at least two of the 9/11 hijackers upon their arrival in California, and how then-Saudi Ambassador to the United States Prince Bandar bin-Sultan provided funds to the two hijackers, the pages clearly contain other vital details and leads on the full scope of the Saudi regime's backing for the 9/11 killers.

Had the full scope of the Saudi Monarchy's bloody hands behind 9/11 come out at the time, no American President could have gotten away with the coddling of the Saudis that has been the hallmark of both the Bush and Obama Administrations, post-9/11. To this day, President Obama openly praises the Saudis for their role in the "coalition" fighting ISIS. Even if he had committed no other impeachable acts, this President's shameless coverup of the Saudi hand behind global jihadist terrorism, itself rises to the threshold of "high crimes and misdemeanors" that warrant immediate impeachment proceedings.

If there is to be any justice for those who died in 9/11, who perished aboard Metro Jet, who were brutally murdered in Paris and in southern Beirut, the full complicity of the Saudis must be exposed publicly, now.

Otherwise, as Sen. Graham so presciently warned, Al Qaeda and ISIS may be formally crushed, but the underlying disease will resurface in a new and more virulent form in no time at all.

Release the 28 pages now!

Intensify Calls for Releasing the 28 Pages

Nov. 16 (EIRNS)-What needs to become a torrent of dissent is so far, only a
trickle. Two articles on Nov. 14 call for the release of the censored 28 pages of the
Joint Congressional Inquiry into the 9/11 attacks. These are the pages which
incriminate the Anglo-Saudi axis behind the attack. Bills in the Senate and House
demand the chapter's declassification and publication. Their release, now, would
explode all the flawed assumptions underlying U.S. failed Middle East policy.
Former Sen. Mike Gravel has demonstrated conclusively-including by his own
practice with the Pentagon Papers in 1971-that any Senator or Representative can
discuss their contents in Congress with impunity.

Seasoned investigative reporter and editor Robert Parry writes in Consortium
News, entitled, "Can Obama Level With the American People?" Parry speculates
whether the shock of the Paris attacks will cause "President Barack Obama and
other leaders [to] finally level with the American people and the world about what
the underlying reasons for this madness are? Will Obama explain how U.S. 'allies'
in the Middle East, such as Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar, have been fueling this
Sunni extremism for years? Will he dare recognize that Israeli repression of the
Palestinians is a major contributing factor, too?" Getting to the heart of the
argument, he says, "On a practical level, will Obama finally release those 28 pages
from the congressional 9/11 report that addressed evidence of Saudi support for the
hijackers who attacked New York and Washington in 2001?"

Parry also raises the August 2013 sarin gas attack outside Damascus, which
Obama "hastily blamed on Assad's regime," along with the Ukraine crisis of 2014,
including what we know about "the July 17, 2014 shoot-down of Malaysia Airlines
Flight 17."

Daniel Lazare also zeros in on Saudi subversion with his article in Consortium
News Nov. 14, "How Saudi/Gulf Money Fuels Terror." Because of the refusal to
identify the Saudi hand in U.S. policy, Lazare says, " 'Terrorism' is a well-nigh
meaningless word that obscures and confuses more than it illuminates. The 9/11
attacks led to a 'global war on terror' and, simultaneously, to a vast cover-up
concerning those who were actually responsible for the deed....

"Strangest of all," he says, "is what has happened to a 28-page chapter in an
earlier joint Congressional report dealing with the question of the Saudi complicity.
While the report as a whole was heavily redacted, the chapter itself wound up
entirely suppressed. Although Obama promised 9/11 widow Kristen Breitweiser shortly after taking office to see to it that it was made public, it remains under
wraps."

Such cowardice creates a breeding ground for right-wing extremists, à la Jean-
Marie Le Pen in France, and Donald Trump in the U.S. "The more the Western
alliance and its Gulf 'allies' insist on spreading chaos in the Middle East," he
concludes, "the more xenophobia and right-wing reaction will be the upshot in
Europe and the United States."

British Labour Leader Corbyn: Ask Saudi Arabia Who Funds ISIS

Nov. 16 (EIRNS)-In an interview with Sky News, British Labour Party Leader
Jeremy Corbyn asserted that serious questions have to be asked about the way the
ISIS "has received weapons, has received money, has been able to sell oil, to export
it, and the role that other countries have played in this." Specifically, he said, Saudi
Arabia should be asked about who is funding ISIS and who is arming it.
Corbyn was also critical of Turkey's role in bombing Kurdish positions in Syria
of the People's Protection Units (YPG), when these have been crucial in combatting
ISIS.

Corbyn welcomed agreements reached regarding the Syrian crisis at last
Saturday's meeting in Vienna, and emphasized that the solution to that crisis must
be political rather than military, the Independent reported today. "In the long run,
there has to be a much wider political settlement in the whole region and in the
Middle East, otherwise we're going to get more of this as time goes by."

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The Lyndon LaRouche Political Action Committee (LPAC). P.O. Box 6157, Leesburg, VA 20178, http://www.larouchepac.com and Not Authorized by Any Candidate or Candidate's Committee