Electronic Intelligence Weekly
Online Almanac
From Volume 2, Issue Number 16 of Electronic Intelligence Weekly, Published Apr. 21, 2003
THIS WEEK YOU NEED TO KNOW
The stark contrast between statements delivered during the week of April 14-21, by former President Bill Clinton and Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) chairman Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.), underscores that the Democratic Party is split wide open on the most pressing issues of the day: the issues of war and peace; and whether the United States will remain a Constitutional republic or seek to become a sick-joke version of the Roman and Napoleonic empires.
The Clinton-Bayh conflict surfaced at the very moment that Democratic Presidential pre-candidate Lyndon LaRouche issued a call for a political "counter-coup" against the neo-conservative power-grab in the Bush Administration, which led to the illegal "preventive" war on Iraq, and to an ongoing drive for an extension of that war to Syria, Iran, and even Saudi Arabia.
Because former President Clinton's remarks were largely blacked out of the corrupt U.S. media, while Bayh's threats received wide publicity, it is critical that the basic facts be presented through the independent press of Lyndon LaRouche, so that leading political circles around the globe have an accurate assessment of the level of political warfare occurring in the United States, as the result of the disastrous policy course adopted by the Bush Administration. A parallel policy battle has erupted inside the Republican Party, involving the circles of former President George H.W. Bush.
President Clinton's remarks were delivered at an April 15 New York City policy forum, sponsored by the Conference Board, a prestigious business forum, before an audience of 300 people. (Click here for EIW's exclusive transcript excerpting Clinton's remarks.) The former President sharply criticized the Bush Administration's "paradigm shift" since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, warning that the United States cannot "jail, kill and occupy all your adversaries." The former President accused the Bush Administration of telling the rest of the world "to go to Hell." He said that the Bush Administration was practicing poor decision-making, noting that "when people are under stress, they hate to think ... when they most need to think." Clinton said that chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix had requested more time to continue the work of his inspectors, and that in time, Clinton believed, Iraq would have been fully disarmedwithout the use of military force. The Bush Administration would not bend, and instead, decided, "We are going to do it now, and if you don't like it, we'll get even with you when it's over"as Clinton characterized their policy.
The next day, the New York Times, while not mentioning a word about former President Clinton's speech, published interviews with several Democratic Party candidates and elected officials, commenting on the Iraq war. Senator Evan Bayh delivered a blunt warning to fellow Democrats that there would be no toleration for any attacks on President Bush over his Iraq war. "There is no question that the President has been strengthened at least in the short run," Bayh told the Times. "If people can't envision a candidate as their Commander-in-Chief in a dangerous world, they're not going to listen to you. The threshold has now been raised, and we need to nominate someone on those grounds.... Equivocating about whether Saddam's departure is a good thing or not," he added, "doesn't help the Democratic Party." Bayh speaks for the organized-crime-contaminated DLC of Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.), which supported and even pushed the Bush Administration's war of aggression against Iraq.
In a further indication of the deep rift in the Democratic Party over the Bush doctrine of imperial preventive war, the Times quoted an unnamed senior Democratic Senator, who clearly shared former President Clinton's concerns: "The big difference is that the first Gulf War ended. This Administration will never end the war. And because they never end the war, they will have an ongoing advantage. An open-ended war on terrorism that will never end and that keeps people constantly on edge. A never-ending military commitment in Iraq that might lead to other commitments beyond Iraq also keeps people focussed on national security."
Leading Republicans closely allied with former President Bush, have recently surfaced with powerful objections to the policies of the current "Chickenhawk"-dominated Bush Administration, which threaten World War III. On April 13, former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger gave an interview to BBC. The "Bush 41" Administration official was asked about the argument, coming out of Washington from circles close to the President, that the overthrow of Saddam Hussein justifies regime-change elsewhere in the region, "even if that includes extending military action to Syria, IranI've even heard Saudi Arabia mentioned." Eagleburger replied, "I just don't think anybody who says that truly understands the American people. You saw the furor that went on in this country before the President got sufficient support to do this [attack Iraq]. We're just not built like that. This is still, whether anybody is prepared to admit it or not, this is still a democracy. And public opinion and the public, still, on these issues, rules." Eagleburger warned, "And if George Bush decided he was going to turn the troops loose on Syria now, and Iran after that, he would last in office for about 15 minutes! ... In fact, if George Bush were to try it now, even I would feel that he ought to be impeached. You can't get away with that sort of thing with this democracy. It's ridiculous!"
Five days before Eagleburger's warning of impeachment if the President follows the agenda of Vice President Cheney, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, et al. and wages war against Damascus, Gen. Brent Scowcroft, the National Security Adviser and one of the closest confidants of President Bush 41, delivered a speech in Oslo before the Norwegian Nobel Institute. In that April 8 address, as in other recent public appearances, Gen. Scowcroft repeated his opposition to the Iraq war. He had warned strongly, prior to the unprovoked American attack, that a preventive war on Iraq would be a dangerous distraction from the war on terrorism, and would undermine the entire international system. He told the Oslo audience that, were the United States and Britain to occupy and control the interim administration in Iraq, this could provoke the "wrath and enmity" of the entire Muslim world. He added, "We're moving uncertainly down paths nobody has gone down before. The structures we've built to handle our security are under significant stress and may not survive to serve us in the future." Warning about the propagandistic use of the term "democracy" by Bush Administration officials, Gen. Scowcroft asked, "What's going to happen the first time we hold an election in Iraq and it turns out the radicals win? We're surely not going to let them take over."
On April 2, speaking in Toronto at the Empire Club, Bush 41 Secretary of State James Baker III made a strong push for the current Bush Administration to turn from war in Iraq to peace between the Israelis and Palestinians, emphasizing that the "road map" document, prepared by the Quartet (the United States, the European Union, Russia, and the Secretary General of the United Nations), represents a "vehicle ... that can help move the stalled peace process forward. So, too, will the appointment of the moderate Mahmoud Abbas as Palestinian Prime Minister." Baker drew the parallel to the 1991 Persian Gulf War, which led to the Madrid talks, and, soon afterwards, to the groundbreaking Oslo Accords. Baker bluntly stated that "Land for peace under United Nations Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338 ... is the only basis upon which the dispute can be settled." He directly warned Ariel Sharon: "Any decision to reopen the 'road map' to substantive amendment ... is an open invitation to interminable delay. And there should be no conditions whatever to Israel's obligation to stop all settlement activity. The United States must press Israelas a friend, but firmlyto negotiate a secure peace based on the principle of trading land for peace.... But the bottom line is this: The time for talking about a road map is over. We have one. And, when the war is over, we need to begin using it."
On April 15, Bush 41's Ambassador to the Soviet Union and Russia, former Democratic National Committee chairman Robert S. Strauss, wrote an op ed published in the Washington Post, seconding Baker's call for aggressive Bush Administration pressure on Israel to accept the road map for Middle East peace. "The time to implement the road map is now," he wrote. "There is no perfect plan, but there are reliable friends. The United States has repeatedly demonstrated its friendship with Israel. Now comes a win-win opening; a plan from which all parties can benefit that can break the logjam at a critical moment... The United States can no longer afford to sit on the sidelines, nor can Israel or the Palestinians afford the luxury of turning their backs on this potential breakthrough. It's time for positive thinking and progress, not retrogression."
In the midst of this surfacing of strong substantive opposition to the Bush Administration war party faction's agenda, former President Bush himself made a trip to Seoul, South Korea, during which he promoted the idea of multilateral talks to resolve the North Korea crisis without war. Donald Gregg, his former Vice Presidential national security aide, and later his Ambassador to South Korea, made similar statements, promoting a peaceful settlement of the conflict.
This chorus of statements from leading associates of former President George H.W. Bush reflects the same intensity of behind-the-scenes policy warfare inside the GOP, where the dominant Cheney-Rumsfeld grouping within the Administration, is committed to a permanent war of destructionism, pointed at the heart of Eurasia. The fact that leading figures in both the Democratic and Republican Parties are now publicly revolting against the dominant war-party factions, is of great strategic import. It reflects potential for action along the lines of Lyndon LaRouche's persistent call, in recent weeks, for a "counter-coup" against the neo-conservatives who are driving a pathetically ill-equipped President George W. Bush into the abyss of world war and a new dark age.
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Lyndon LaRouche gave this address on April 12 to scores of LaRouche Youth Movement organizers gathered simultaneously in Mexico City, and in Lima, Peru. His opening remarks were followed by a question-and-answer dialogue, part of which follows below.
So, I'll take two basic areas, fundamentally, plus another one, for opening remarks here. First of all, let me summarize the international situation, as I know it, uniquely well. So therefore, I should give the report, since I'm the only one who really knows what's going on in the world, as adequately as I do.
Secondly, I shall indicate the specific implications of a youth movementmy youth movementworldwide, for the global strategic situation, today. And by that, I mean to include also, specifically, most emphatically, Mexico and Peru, which are the two parts of the Ibero-American organization which have, in a sense, a mass base of membership, apart from this horrible situation which our people in Colombia are suffering, for example. Or the isolation in Venezuela.
First of all, the world faces the following problem: We're now at the endthe collapse phase, the final collapse phase of the international monetary-financial system, which has ruled the world since 1971, since August 1971. That financial-monetary system is now in economic collapse; it can not be reformed; it can not be saved. It's finished. And any attempt to continue that system would mean the destruction of civilization in a more general manner. That is, the plunge of the whole planet into a prolonged dark age, of one, two, or more generations. Therefore, that system: We must be rid of that.
There's another aspect to the system, integral to it. That is, the beginning, about 1964, of the unleashing of an existentialist movement, which, with the Vietnam War especially, in the aftermath of the 1962 Missile Crisis, the assassination of President Kennedy, the launching of the Vietnam Warat that point, internationally, the young people entering adulthood, or such as entering universities, in 1963-1964, were subjected in increasing degrees, to a countercultural development, which made the entire generationnot every person in the generation, but the generation as a whole, in the Americas, throughout the Americas, in Europe and elsewhere, especially in Europe and the Americas, entire generations have been subjected to a classical counterculture, which was sometimes called the "rock-drug-sex counterculture," sometimes, simply called the "Now Generation." This generation, which came into increasing influence, as adults, beginning about 1964-66, has been correlated with a transformation of society, especially the United States and the United Kingdom, but also then spreading into Europe and spreading into the rest of the Americas, a destruction of the culture, from a culture oriented to production, to a culture oriented to a post-industrial society, a post-production society, a so-called "consumer society," or Now Generation.
That is, the values of this generation, coming into adulthood, from the middle to late 1960s on, was toward getting immediate gratification, in the short term, in life, as opposed to having a higher purpose for their lives. That is, in former generations, we may not have had very moral people, but they had a certain kind of morality: that they looked at their lives in terms of what they did, while they were alive, to benefit their children, or their children's generation, and their grandchildren's generation. They also looked somewhat to the past, to see what their obligations were to the contributions made to them, and their development, from earlier generationsgrandparents, parents, and so forth. This sense of connection, this kind of approximation of a sense of immortality, which comes from the relationship of one generation to another, in the struggle for progress in the human condition, was broken by the Now Generation.
Thus, we have now a generation, and take particularly, especially the 18-25-year-old generation, who see themselves correctly, as having been dumped by their parents' generation into becoming a no-future generation. Thus, you have the generation which is now in the topmost positions of government and business, with a few exceptions of older people and a few other exceptionsthis generation is indifferent and cold-blooded in respect to the conditions of life they are imposing upon the rest of humanity. They're concerned about their comfort, their generation's comfort, their pleasure-seeking, not humanity in general.
Now, this is a break in historical culture, which confronts a generation, notably exemplified by those between 18 and 25 years of age, where their parents' generation has betrayed them. And there is virtually no efficient communication between them and their parents' generation, on these issues. This is the Baby Boomer problem; in France they call them the "Bobos"; there are other names, sometimes, a little bit scatological, for the same generation, in other parts of the world.
This is a key problem. And it's this problem which has led to the rise of a new kind of fascism, which is characteristic, especially characteristic of this generation, the so-called "Bobo" generation, or Baby Boomer generation. This generation has adopted an existentialist view, which is what the meaning of the Now Generation is. They're concerned with their local interests, with their personal interests, with their personal satisfaction, at the expense of society at large. If they're taken care of, they're content. They say, "Don't talk to me about society at large. Talk to me about my community, my family, my immediate interests, my pleasure, my desires. Not about society."
Now this kind of existentialism, which corresponds to that of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche and so forth, or Jean-Paul Sartre, has been a corruption spreading through the Americas, in particular, as well as Europe, for as long as I've known. Actually, you had it, for example, in Peru, you had the spread of existentialism in Peru among educated people. The spread of existentialism in the form of the followers of Jacques Soustelle and so forth in Mexico. So throughout the hemisphere, in particular, we've had the corruption, this existentialist corruption, which took root in the form of the so-called Now Generation, the generation which is now under 60 years of age, which is dominating the institutions of government, business, and so forth, in society. This is our problem.
If this generation, the Now Generation, the Baby Boomers, the Bobos, are relied upon to lead society now, with their sense of values, we are going into a dark age. We have to see what happened from 1971-on, to the present, that is, the collapse of the economy, through the existing monetary-financial system, as a product of this cultural paradigm shift, associated with the Baby Boomer generation, who were the people who were mass-recruited into this.
Now this kind of ideology is also fascism, the fascism which is typified by the case of Napoleon Bonaparte, who is the first modern fascist. The model for fascism is, of course, ancient Rome, the Rome of the Caesars, and Napoleon, of course, was an imitation of Caesar. That wasn't the only form of it. European monarchies, in the pre-Renaissance period, were essentially based, by and largethough there were struggles by Charlemagne and others, to change thisbut the monarchies were essentially based on a feudal conception, which was a copy of this Roman-Imperial Caesarism. And this was true of the kings of Spain, and the Hapsburgs, in general, and so forth. They were essentially pre-fascists. Later, with the decay of the monarchical system, the old feudal system, you had, beginning with the pivotal case of Louis XIV in France, who was a real pig, hmm?you had the emergence of Napoleon Bonaparte, who was originally a product of British intervention in the French Revolution. Napoleon Bonaparte is the first modern fascist.
And from 1806 on, Hegel became increasingly, not only an enthusiast for this fascist figure of Napoleon, but created a theory of society and the state, which is the basis for the threat to civilization today. This idea of Hegel was expressed by what's called "the end of history": that a time would come in history, when a great man would destroy the historical process of development of civilization, and give society a fixed form, that is, the end of history, under which great men, powerful men, would rule over the rest of society. This conception was developed further by Nietzsche, the idea of the Dionysian cult. That a new Dionysus must arise, who would destroy civilization, and would exert his power and influence by committing such crimes as would horrify and intimidate the rest of society. So society, under the influence of this "Superman," this man who is capable of crimes beyond all belief, would rule society.
This became the theory of modern fascism, based on Hegel and Nietzsche. This is what was developing toward the end of the 19th Century, and this is what developed in the 20th Century. This is Mussolini, this is Hitler. And this is also what is running, controlling the President of the United States at this moment. The group around Cheney, the followers of Leo Strausswhich I've covered in this, my part, and others, in this paper on "The Children of Satan." So these are the children of Satan, especially those who have come from the Baby Boomer generation, who have accepted existentialism, and because of their acceptance of existentialism, tend to be sucked into the kinds of ideas which are typified by the Cheney Chickenhawk layer. This is the threat to civilization today.
We have a positive side to this picture, which is that the development of the idea of an economic alternative, a positive alternative to the collapse of the present world monetary-financial system. This solution for the present crisis, is presently centered in Eurasia, and is focussed upon the prospect of cooperation among France, Germany, and Russia, on the one side; and on Russia, China, and India, and other countries, on the other side. That is, we have a large part of the population of the world concentrated in Eurasia; also a large part of the world's land area, in the central and northern part of Eurasia, has some of the greatest mineral resources available on the planet. Europe is bankrupt; it needs expansion of its markets; these markets exist in Asia. And therefore, by the connection, a Eurasian connection of cooperation in technology-sharing and long-term projects of capital improvement, infrastructure, mean a solution for the economic crisis in Asia, if that is done properly. And the same thing, the same principle applies to the Americas. So the solution exists.
The opposition to the solution is what? Just as I said back in January of 2001, before George Bush was inaugurated, the danger at that time, was that the combination of these kinds of conditions, the breakdown of the economy, which was then fully in process, would lead to something like the Hitler phenomenon, where someone, as Montagu Norman and others did in the late 1920s and 1930s, would adopt a fascist movement, in this case, that of Hitler, and with financing from New York, from New York bankers, directed by British bankers, that they would put into power, a dictator, i.e., Hitler, in Germany.
Hitler was brought to power in Germany at precisely the point that Franklin Roosevelt, with his New Deal, and revival program, was on target for being introduced in March of 1933. Hitler was put into power on Jan. 30, 1933. Shortly, three weeks later, the Reichstag Fire was set by Goering, and then used to make Hitler a dictator. And therefore, when Roosevelt became President, Europe was on the road to war and dictatorship. And by the middle of the next year, World War II was inevitable, globally.
The danger, as I pointed out, in that address I gave before Bush's inauguration, is that the new administration were likely to head in a direction of continuing the foolishness of his policy, and at the same time, the opportunity would arise for somebody to do something like a Reichstag Fireto create a crisis in order to establish a dictatorship, and launch wars from the United States. That happened on Sept. 11, 2001: From the inside of the United States institutions, elements acting as Goering had in the case of the Reichstag Fire, set the equivalent of a Reichstag Firethe bombing of New York and Washington on Sept. 11, 2001. That immediately unleashed a program of fascist world conquest out of the mouth, and out of the circles, of Vice President Dick Cheney.
That's the problem we face. That's what you're seeing in the war in Iraq, and the threat to extend this war to other parts of the world. They're serious about it.
So, our fight against this kind of existentialism is not merely against them; it's the fight to introduce the alternative which can prevent their success. That is, if we do not proceed to conduct the kind of reforms of the international monetary and financial system that I proposed, then this world is going into a fascist hell.
Now, that does not mean that Cheney has succeeded. Cheney & Co. have recently made a terrible mess in the Middle East. They are great failures. They have succeeded in nothing, except in creating chaos. Their incompetence is obvious; their military plans were absurd and destructive. They have no solution for the crisis they've created. The President of the United States is in jeopardy because of this situation, which is going to become worse and worse as the weeks pass, unless some fundamental change is made.
Now, the question is: How are we going to introduce the change? And that's were you come in. That's where the youth come in.
Now, by yourselves, you, as younger people, say, the 18-25-year group, can't do muchby yourselves, as individuals. Or simply as attachments to existing political movementsyou can't do much by yourselves. But, you have a secret power: And the power is, that your parents' generations, which were, by and large, that is, the majority of the generation, is corrupt, morally corrupt, in the sense of being existentialist members of a Now Generation, having lost the sense of the future, which earlier generations of the same nations had. So therefore, what you represent: You represent the future. They have given you no future. You have no future under the continuation of the policies which your parents' generation has put into place. However, if you organize effectively, you can recruit your parents' generation to rejoin the human race, and you're the only ones that can really do it. Because they have to recognize that you, and your children, whoever they are, afterward, are the only future they have.
So that's the meaning of a youth movement in the first instance.
Now, how does a youth movement work?
In former times, you had a transmission of culture, sort of a traditional culture, from one generation to the next. A kind of traditional morality, from one generation to the next, varying from country to country, and culture to culture, and region to region. But it existed. And therefore, young people growing up would adopt and use the culture they had inherited from their circumstances or their upbringing. And that would give them a guide as to what was a truthful orientation toward building the future. Well, that has been broken; that link has been broken.
Now, how do you find a cultural basis for building the ideas on which to base a successful future of humanity? You have to go to the issue of truth. That is, you can no longer rely upon tradition; you can no longer rely upon popular opinionbecause those have broken down. Those will fail you. You must now go back to a Classical standpoint, and find a solution for morality in discovering what should be meant by truth, in the sense that Plato defines truth. And I've used in the United States and elsewhere, Gauss's 1799 refutation of the follies of Euler and Lagrange, by comparing these to the Classical Greek understanding of the notion of powers in mathematical physics, to give people a sense that they can discover and know what truth is, independently of whatever popular opinion might be. And that is what a youth movement needs.
Now, since people 18-25 years of age, or university agethey are not finished individuals. They are people whose minds tend to be open to discovering truth. And the way they do that is the way we do it in university. You have a class size which preferably is not more than 15-25 people, somewhere in that rangeenough people so that everybody in the class can participate in the discussion, and not so many that they're buried, and only a few people of the many can participate. That's a typical Socratic-dialogue type of group, which is what a good class is, and a basic university class is today.
The young people in that age group require that kind of association, of groupings who meet, regularly or periodically, about 15-25 people, approximately, who have enough interaction, and enough opportunity to interact as individuals, to actually engage in a Socratic process of mastering knowledge. In other words, a university on wheels, of people moving through society, acting politically, providing leadership to humanity, inspiring a generation which is about to go over the cliff, and all these things, but doing it in the way they were conducting experiments and studies in university life. That works. We have demonstrated it in the United States, in particular, and also, to some degree, in France, recently. That method works.
Now this is a new method, introduced by me, but it's not new in the sense of principle. These are the same principles on which every great movement for a renaissance has been based. Young people, of essentially that age interval, who meet and work together in mastering the great ideas of principle from past history, including especially, Classical Greek history, and in that process, they develop the strength to become a revolutionary force in ideas and politics, for making a great advance in the condition of civilization. Now that's what we're doing.
We have very good beginnings in the United States, which are a model for how to do it. I broke through the garbage that was running the United States, from the top down, from 1992, to about 2000-2001. I broke through that. We now have an organization that was a shambles, on the way to the garbage dump; we now have a healthy organization once again. We also have got the rebirth of something significant in terms of the Ibero-American organization. That is in process. The youth movement is the key to that. The youth movement is not youth attached to the previous organizational network or ideas. It is a new dimension in organizing, which requires guidance in the sense that the university classroom represents a place of guidance. But it represents a force, a social force, to rapidly influence, not only their own generation, but that of the previous generation.
We have a fair basis for this in Mexico. Mexico is the key in all Ibero-America, for such a youth movement. Peru is an example of a second case, where there is already something there to start this, and to spread it. Peru has a certain kind of integrity, an historical integrity, which gives it something like Mexico, different from Mexico, but like Mexico, a basis for this kind of thing. It will spread, and can be spread to other parts of the Americas. Without the conditions that exist in Colombia today, it would spread there. Argentina is ideal, except for the extremely oppressive conditions affecting the people theremakes it difficult. It's also a great potential in Brazil, and so forth and so on.
So, what you're doing now, in meeting in Mexico, with Peru on the line, and with the United Statesyou are representing an extension of my international youth movement. It's mine because I have to take responsibility for it, because I can keep you free of the grip of the Baby Boomers [laughing]: I have to protect you from the Baby Boomers. But you have to have guidance, at the same time. So you are the nucleus of a new, revolutionary organization, which is the best hope for the transformation of this planet. Look around you. You're a few people, but you represent that.
Okay, now we turn this back to you.
Question: I wanted to ask you your position regarding the Cuban government of Fidel Castro, the question of the blockade, and the anti-Castro mafia based in Miami. Thanks.
Lyndon LaRouche: I had an interesting discussion yesterdayI was in Rome, in the Vaticanon just this question of Castro. And this question has a very amusing side. That anybody who has any brains or sense of responsibility in the Americas, will always be willing to talk to Fidel Castroeven if you disagree with him, violently. Because Castro can be dealt with, if you proceed in the right way. Even when he disagrees with you totally. Even when you disagree with him totally. The Vatican has tried to deal with Castro in that waythe Pope and his immediate circlesand they've done a fairly good job. Carter tried to go down there and deal with Castro. The way we deal with Castro currently from the United States is idiotic. Yeah, Castro does represent problems. But Castro is also the head of state of Cuba, and Cuba is a nation. And we have certain power to influence the condition of life of Cuba.
Now, for example, let's take the case of something good that was done by Castro: In the 1980s, the early 1980s, I proposed a program for dealing with what is now called HIV, which is otherwise known as AIDS. My program was strongly destroyedthe effort initiated was destroyed in the United States very quickly. It was opposed in the World Health Organization, also. Fidel Castro, doing virtually exactly what I specified should be done, as the basic approach to health care, against HIV, had to deal with the spread of HIV into Cuba from people who were returning from the wars in Africa. And to this date, Castro has succeeded.
Now, at the same time, I have friends in Brazil. Friends in Brazil, associated with the scientific circles there, are one of the key resources for producing generic drugs, at low prices, with an orientation to provide these drugs to African nations, if that were possible.
So therefore, we have a practical reason for dealing with Castro on such things as his ideas, what his government has done with the question of HIV, is valuable for a world in which HIV is spreading rapidly.
Castro is also a factor in respect to what we have to deal with with Venezuela, and with Colombia, with the drug problems in Colombia. Therefore, we should be constantly in dialogue with him, to induce him to accept a good position on these matters.
We have the case of Lula da Silva, who I will not swear for, but he's President of Brazil now, and I respect the head of a sovereign country, elected President, such as Lula, and Lula and Carter tried to do something to avoid a bloodshed, outbreak of homicidal bloodshed in Venezuela. They may not have succeeded entirely, but it was a useful effort. Also, Carter's talking to Cuba, to Fidel earlier, was a part of the process enabling Carter and others to have a certain influence in Venezuela to try to prevent a bloody coup imposed by a U.S. or other military bunch of conspirators. The concern about Colombia is a concern to us.
So therefore, my view of Castro, is, rather than trying to be categorical about it, we should have very clear ideas about what we stand for, work for objectives that we stand for, and realize that we have two choices: First of all, we must try to deal with Castro, as with Cuba, as we would with any other state. We're not going to go into Cuba the way that Bush went into Iraq. We're not going in for regime-change by force. We will not go to war unless we have to, in unjustified warfare. Therefore, we deal with Castro because he is, presently, the head of government. We deal with him with a very clear idea of what our principles are and our concerns are. And we realize that we have resources, pressure resources, in which he can find it to his interest and Cuba's interest, to accept some of our strong proposals to him. The history of the relationship has shown that this is possible.
Therefore, we have to act like statesmen and diplomats, and deal with it, in a sense, the same way that the Pope and his retinue dealt with Castro on their visit to Cuba, and from abroad. That's exactly the way to approach it. We do not wish to have a war in the hemisphere. We have enough of a problem with this war on drugs. Admittedly, Castro has a certain relationship to that. We have to deal with this, to find a solution; we want a minimal war solution. And if we can get Castro to cooperate, in terms which are acceptable to us, we're very happy. And that's the way we have to approach this kind of problem, realizing that the choice is either war, or finding effective diplomacy to solve problems.
I believe that we have the resources, if we use them. If I were President of the United States, I could deal with this problem. We have the resources of diplomacy to deal with the problems of Cuba, and of Castro; in such a way, we can live with it.
Question: Hello to the international LaRouche movement. I'm a representative of the Youth Movement in Peru. My question is the following: We have already had a war which is not over, and which is clearly going to have terrible ramifications for humanity. I understand that we know the work that we are doing internationally against this accursed war, against this accursed system, is being waged with all of our forces. I would ask Mr. LaRouche whether he, as an aspirant to the U.S. Presidency in 2004, if he wins, what forces, or shall I say what countries, could we pull together to get us out of this international crisis, where the law has definitely been trampled, and respect for sovereignty endangered? Which are the countries that in some way might have a world geopolitical vision, as the U.S. will most certainly have when Mr. LaRouche wins the U.S. Presidency? Thanks.
LaRouche: Well, I'm not waiting to be President; I'm already acting on this now. As you may have observed, that there is a tremendous amount of opposition [to the war] in relevant circles, associated with some political party circles, and associated with institutions in and around the Executive Branch of government inside the United States. These are people with whom I have shared information, and have shared views and proposals, on trying to prevent what has become this present Iraq War, and similar things. This includes people who have high rank in many of the institutions associated with governmentin government and associated with government.
So I have no problem with this: That were I President, I know now that I would have the backing and cooperation from within the ranks of government to do the things that I know need to be done. That does not mean the government would follow out my orders automatically. The government doesn't work that way. But it does mean that the conceptions which I stand for do have receptivity in a predominant number of leading circles inside the United States on this level. So I don't have a problem with this. It's not a hypothetical question.
What I'm doing now is, I'm acting on the basis of the recognition in circles inside and outside the United States, that I have that kind of influence and position. Now, this is a position of limited strength, of limited authority. But it's the best the United States has right now. If you take my candidacy for President, and you look in the two major party systems, you look among the candidates, you look in the Congress, you look in the institutions of leadership in the United StatesI'm the only competent leader in the situation. And more and more people in leading positions are recognizing that fact.
There is no candidate who is rival to me in the Democratic Party who could possibly face the problems that face the United States and the world right now. We have one or two candidates, for example, Kerry from Massachusetts, the Senator, and some other individuals who might be good leaders under normal conditions, and might be useful co-leaders under present conditions. I mean, one of them might be a good Vice President for me, in the future! But we don't have people who are qualified to understand and face the issues now. I'm the only one that does.
Therefore, I am acting as a President in the wings, a shadow President, as the alternative. I'm providing leadership internationally, as well as in the United States, for bringing certain forces together, either for developing ideas which will solve problems, in the general case; or in some cases, for actual ideas for action now. So that's my position.
In the case of the Americas, obviously: You go back to 1982; I wrote a report which was actually associated with this situation in Argentina and in Mexico then. It was called Operation Juarez . Now if you look at that report from then, and look at the conditions today, you see the report, in some respects, was rather prophetic, and is not only prophetic, but gives you a general map, a policy-making map, if not finished policies, for what we have to do immediately.
We've had a long story also, in our struggles, against the drug problems in Central and South America, in particular. We know how to deal with these problems. We have longstanding friends who share, more or less share our views on these questionsgovernments which share our views. On the economic questions: There are forces in every part of South and Central America; I could name for example, Peru, formerly. We have Mexico, I mean, we're very close to a major current in Mexico's political historythey're sympathetic, if they don't always agree with us, they're sympathetic. If I'm in power, they will cooperate with me, and I will cooperate with them. We have the situation in Colombia: Many of us share that view of what has to be done about that problem.
Brazil: A major power in the hemisphere. Leading forces there do know me. They know me very well. If I'm in a leading position, they'll be much happier to work with me than with the alternatives presently available. Argentina? Hah, no problem! And so forth and so on. So, what I'm doing now, is essentially doing now, as much as I can, what I would do in the future as President. And I'm acting now, not with the idea of waiting to become President to do these things, but as a President in the wings, a shadow President of the United States. The only qualified candidate for President of the United States at this time. I am moving, as much as I can, to put into motion the things I would do, say, in the year 2005.
Question: Good day. I am a collaborator of the LaRouche Youth Movement here in Peru in the field of music. I would like to know how we can adapt musical education to a system of a "university on wheels"? That is, what suggestions could you give me, Mr. LaRouche, on how to include musical education in the Renaissance Platonic tradition, within a course of study?
LaRouche: Well, first of all, we start with the Pythagorean version of the Classical tradition, which I'm sure you know: That the difference between the characteristics of the human singing voice and a monochord, which is the experiment conducted, as reported by Pythagoras, in which he defined the "comma," not as a mathematical figure, calculation, but as a measurable difference between the singing intervals, various intervals in the bel canto mode in the human voice, as opposed to the intervals as defined by the plucking of the string of a monochord. Now, that's one example of it.
However, the difference goes deeper, as you know. The difference in the Classical musical tradition, especially since the developments in Florence, and so forth, in the 15th Century, and the lost, or partly lost work of Leonardo da Vinci, "De Musica." We go into the great work of Bach, which of course is the modern revolution in music, because Bach gave us a demonstration of the perfection of the methods of counterpoint, which are consistent with human singing, and with the spectrum of the range of human singing voices. What this does: Music is a medium, not as a form of entertainmentthough it is entertainment, like great Classical drama, like great Classical poetryand music is actually a higher form of great Classical poetry, in which the human being, instead of looking at a figure on a stage, for example, is inspired by a good performance to look quickly from the stage, to the stage of the individual's imagination. And in this way, the individual is able to communicate human ideas. It can not be done without that medium. The great operas, the great solo works, choral works, and so forththese are examples of an expression of man's humanity: the difference between man and the beast. And the essential power in politics, the power of the individual and the group in politics, is a conviction, an understanding, a confidence in the difference between man and the beast. All political movements are based on that.
Thus, Classical art, as typified by Classical painting, Classical musical composition and its performance, Classical poetry, the great painting, the kind of sculpture which is typified for modern times, by the Classical Greek sculpture. These kinds of things are essential to humanity, and political movements which have any basis in depth, will always base themselves on a deeper understanding, and participation in this kind of Classical art.
Question: I study in the humanities department of the UNAM. I would like to know, Mr. LaRouche, if the youth do not become aware of the historical role we must play at this moment, and that guided by you, as the only candidate ready to do something for the situation or for the world crisis which we are facing, can we say that we are facing World War III?
I also want to know if you are ready to change the way in which the communications media has invaded the minds of the youth with subversive and dangerous subliminal messages, like sex, drug addiction, anti-family values, and morals that have produced, just as you say, youths' indifference to world problems and a search instead for personal gratification. Thank you.
LaRouche: Yes! Well, the basic point is, we have tomy job is to get this kind of movement in motion. There's no particular problem here. We just have to do it. We can reach out. We can inspire people to find their humanity in themselves. We get away from existentialism into this sort of thing, and that's the way it goes. The Youth Movementit's almost sui generisif we don't do this, if we don't make this kind of change in society, there is going to be a new dark age, of two to three or more generations. Because the present civilization is a very fragile, physical civilization. It would not take much collapse, for long, to set forth a chain-reaction collapse, which would bring us down into a population level well below a billion people on this planet, in a very short period of time, a generation or so.
Now that kind of calamity means the wiping out of culture: It means a new dark age. If we don't turn the corner away from the trends and policy of the past 40 years, that's exactly where we're going to go. So we're out to save civilization. And my view is, only a youth movementfor reasons I stated earlieronly a youth movement can do this. That is, a youth movement which can itself challenge the preceeding generation, the so-called Now Generation, and challenge them to come back to humanity. To come back to morality, in the sense, that you pose the question of morality. And on that basis, we have a sufficient force to respond to an impossible crisis, with possible solutions.
We have to develop that kind of consciousness, that kind of leadership. That's why I emphasize this idea of the role of the university on wheels. There are profound ideas, such as I raise in this question of this Gauss challenge on the errors of Euler and Lagrange. And the comparison of that, to the work of Archytus and Plato and so forth, on the issue of the early physical geometry, pre-Euclidean physical geometry, as brought into modern times by Gauss and Riemann and so forth. That this kind of educational process, this mastery of music, Classical music, the mastery of what is meant by great Classical painting, the work of Leonardo da Vinci, the work of Raphael Sanzio, the work of Rembrandt, especially. I particularly love, I think is most inspiring, is the famous painting of the Bust of Homer looking at the stupid Aristotle, the blind Aristotle, of Rembrandt. Beautiful example. Other things of that sort.
So, a sense of this education, with no division between art and so-called physical science. Bridging it, in the way that Classical studies do, the way that Plato does, in a sense, in his dialogues, overall. The idea of spirituality, of theology, of the organization of nature, of the Classical composition of ideas, as being distinctively human: These things going together create a kind of happiness, a superior kind of happiness, in people. And the essential thing is, we have to be a movement for happiness, with a clear understanding of the danger to civilization if we lose; that is, we do not reverse the current trends in policy. That for me, is the essence of the matter.
The main thing, is to get acrosslet me just take one step back, and addI've said it so many times, I sometimes forget to say it again: The essential difference is the difference between man and an animal. That is, man is not limited, as an animal, to some fixed propensities. For example, if man were a higher ape, the population of human species on this planet, the past 2 million years, would never have exceeded several million individuals. We now have over 6 billion human individuals living on this planet. The possibility of this population flows from discoveries transmitted from generation to generation, improvements transmitted from generation to generation, which give man an increasing power in the universe.
But the problem has been, as the problem arises again today, that in society, prior to the Renaissance, in particular, in every case we know, society was based on an oligarchy of a few, with the help of some lackeys, either coming down and killing human beings who are treated as wild animals, or taking human beings who are treated as human cattle, and herding them, and culling the flocks. So the problems with society earlier, as Plato's time addressed this question, the question of slavery, the question of degradation of mankind, is the degradation of humanity, or most of it, to a condition which resembles that of an animal, an unthinking animal, who does what he's supposed to do, and is culled when he becomes excessive in numbers.
So this consciousness of what humanity is: Getting Classical music into the young child, say in Mexico, the young, poor child from a peasant family, participating in Classical music, is an affirmation of that child's humanity, and of the humanity of that child's parents. So all of these things go together, by affirming the humanity of the human individual, in saying that society must be constituted on the basis of promoting the humanity, and the development of the humanity, of the individual. If we start from that, all things fall in place. The rest of it is simply practical strategy.
Question: I'm from the Polytechnic Institute [of Mexico]. My questions is: How can we make our opinion about the economic crisis the world is facing be more widely known? Because speaking of a situation since 1971, as you have just now, where the United States, as far as I know, put its currency above money in generalthat is what I have understoodand in this way has succeeded in buying and handling everything on the basis of dollars, and making its currency the one that grows, and in this way, ruling.
I understand that oil is also being bought in dollars and that in this same way, the other countries have to invest their wealth, their money, in buying dollars, getting rich in a "virtual" way. Well, anyway, that's more or less what I'd like you to expand on, this business of the "virtual" dollar and if it's real.
LaRouche: Look at the problem of European nations, for example, today. It makes clear what the problems of the United States are. Europe, coming out of the Renaissance, particularly after the Treaty of Westphalia, which was, in a sense, the rebirth of European civilization, after the intervention of Cardinal Mazarin, together with his associate Colbert, in the situation of the Thirty Years War and the aftermath. This was the beginning of a European civilization, a European-wide civilization. So, out of that, you had a problem. Europe was so corrupted by various traditional influences, such as the Hapsburgs, and such as the Venetian crowd, as such, that it was impossible, it was thought, during the 17th and 18th Centuries, to create a true republic in Europe, as had been intended by, say, Nicholas of Cusa, Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa, and others in the 15th-Century Renaissance.
So therefore, the leading minds of Europe, concentrated on North America, in particular, for the launching of what would be, presumably, a model, true republic, which could then inspire Europe to copy that model. What happened during the course of the 18th Century, after some influence in that direction from Leibniz to the Mather family, as with Cotton Mather and so forth, is that there was a more strenuous effort to bring the culture of Europe, the best culture of Europe, into play among the circles struggling for independence inside North America, the North American English-speaking colonies. This was basically a relationship between a fellow called Abraham Kästner, a leading scientific figure at the University of Göttingen, in Germany, and Benjamin Franklin, the leader of the independence forces inside the United States, or what became the United States.
On this basis, the United States developed a republic, whose essence is expressed by the Preamble of the U.S. Constitution, which defined three principleswhich are rather popular among the patriotic circles of Mexico as well. Number one: that the nation and its people are sovereign. That is, there is no external authority over their administration of their own affairs, among their own people, in their own territory. Secondly, that government is not legitimate, unless that government is efficient in its promotion of the general welfare of all of the population. Third, that the present generations' government is not efficient if it does not promote the general welfare of posterity more than even the living generation.
So, what happened in Europe was this: As a result of the British intervention in the French Revolution, in the form of Philippe Egalité and Jacques Necker, who were both British agents, to create the orchestration of the July 14, 1789 Bastille event, which was a British intelligence operation, which destroyed much of the capability of Bailly and Lafayette to establish a monarchical republic, consistent with American principles, in France. France degenerated through the Jacobin Terror, and through the fascist regime of Napoleon Bonaparte, and thus, Europe was thrown back. There was an effort from various quarters, especially the Prussian Classical effort in Germany, to establish a true republic on the American-style model. That failed at the Treaty of Vienna, in 1814-15.
So as a result, what had happened, was that Venice had taken the Venetian model, which is of a state, a maritime power, with imperial tendencies, based on control by a financier oligarchythe so-called Venetian Republicand this model of Venetian Republic was transplanted into the Netherlands, and into England. Over the course of time since, European governments have evolved into what is called the Anglo-Dutch Liberal model. The Liberal model of this form: First of all, it is based on a monarchical principle left over from feudalism; that is, the concept of the President or Monarch as head of state. That the government, and much of its detailed executive functions are assigned to a parliament, a parliament which really does not have real control over the future. You have a third institution, which is called an independent central banking system, as opposed to a national banking system, which exerts veto power over the government, and often overthrows governments it doesn't like, through parliamentary crises.
So the general model of society, which is accepted as the "liberal" model of society, or the "democratic" model of society, is this Venetian model, which is based on a government, that is, an executive branch of permanent institutions of government; a parliament, which is easily destabilized by financial and other crises, or by bribing; and then, a central banking system, which is independent, which is actually the agency of financial interests, foreign and domestic.
So this has been the major problem. The United States has suffered from the influence of what is called the American Tory faction, which represents this Anglo-Dutch Liberal model. This is associated with Wall Street, which is an example of the Anglo-Dutch Liberal model. The crisis of the world financial system today is the impositionespecially after the death of Roosevelt, and especially after the events of 1971the imposition of the Anglo-Dutch Liberal model, as a model of real tyranny. That's what we're struggling against.
Now, what's the issue? The issue of money versus economy. Economy should be understood to mean, primarily, the welfare of the individual member of society, that is, the general welfare, both for the present and the future. And also, the sovereignty of the nation-state, of the republic. This means something that is measured in physical terms: that is, in terms of longevity; in terms of health care; in terms of physical productivity per capita; in terms of capital improvements in the capacity of society, in land reclamations, improvements and so forthall physical things which can be measured per capita and per square kilometer.
So therefore, the policy of society should be to realize economic objectives which are physical in nature, if we include culture as one of the physical benefits in nature. Therefore, how do we run a money-economy in such a way that we achieve physical benefits? We have to put the money system under control of government. We do that in several ways: We do it by national banking; that no debt can be incurred by a nation's government, except by its consent. In the U.S. Constitution, this means that the Executive Branch can create currency and debt, but it must do so with the consent of the Congress. Among nations, we also add another feature, that governments can enter into treaty agreements affecting trade, and these long-term treaty agreements can be used as credit among nations to promote growth among nations, also, as well as generating credit from with governments.
So what we have to do then, is to realize, as the past 30-odd years should have shown, is where we had a great increase in financial aggregates, and a galloping and accelerating increase in the amount of money emission, or near money emission, accompanied by a decline, especially in the Americas, of per-capita, per-square-kilometer physical production. So therefore, what is needed, as we used to understand, is government must not only regulate its currency, it must regulate the uses of currency, and regulate the financial practice within society, in such a way, that the monetary and financial assets do not run away from the reality of the physical assets. And that's the basic problem in economy.
So therefore, what we did in the postwar period, under Roosevelt, was to launch a Bretton Woods system, which regulated the world economy's relations in such a way as to promote reconstruction in Europe, and expansion of the economy in other places. We see this, for example, in the case of Mexicothat despite all the problems of the U.S.-Mexico relations during the postwar period, the post-Roosevelt period, we see that there is a secular tendency toward improvements, physical improvements in Mexico, which began to be reversed in 1971, but conspicuously from 1982 on. So therefore, the rules, protectionist rules, by which the Mexican government, in international relations, could regulate its internal affairs, were removed. And thus, we have now a predatory financial interest, and predatory monetary interest, have been looting Mexico and the other countries of the Americas.
Our problem now, is to simply recognize these principal differences, and go back in the first approximation, to what did workthat is, the idea of a regulated international monetary system, and monetary forms, and to financial controls, and trade and tariff agreements, which insure that the flow of money produces a result which is in conformity with the intention of society to improve the physical conditions of life.
Question: I am from the LaRouche Youth Movement in Peru, and I want to ask Mr. LaRouche, how can we make aesthetics a part of our daily lives? Thank you.
LaRouche: Ah! This is very good. I try to do that. It's a struggle, but I try to do it. I insist on music; I insist on poetry; I insist on being serious about music and poetry, in the Classical sense. I insist upon people being serious about art, in a Classical sense.
For example, I've often used with the youth movement, who really have not been much exposed to Classical art as a concept, the connection among several things: First of all, what is the difference between the Archaic method of sculpture, as known to Greece and to Egypt at that time, with what became known as the Classical Greek method of sculpture, Classical Greek method meaning a figure, say, a human figure, caught in mid-motion, and effectively so represented by a statue?
Then you to into the 15th Century, and you go to Florence; in that period, there was a cathedral, Santa Maria del Fiore, which had been established, but without a cupola. The problem was, the designers of this cathedral had intended to build a cupola of that cathedral which would be greater than the cupola of the Pantheon in Rome; that is, the idea that: to affirm Christianity's superiority to pagan pantheism. But they couldn't construct it with the existing methods. So along came Filippo Brunelleschi, who took the contract, and said, "I can solve the problem."
The problem was that they couldn't get enough timber available to build a cupola, by then generally accepted methods of construction. He built it. And I had great fun with that, because I solved the problem; and I've had my solution confirmed by a leading Italian engineer: that the principle of the catenary, the principle of Leibnizian least-action, was used through the form of the hanging chain, to enable this construction to be built with economical use of building materials.
So now what we have, therefore, you have this beautiful cupola, which has two walls, inner and outer wallsyou can walk up the steps inside it, if you need the exerciseit's good for you. It's a beautiful cathedral, with many wonderful artworks, which represent the Classical tradition. But the key thing is this: The principle of the catenary, which is known also as Leibniz's principle of universal least-action, and the principle of Classical Greek sculpture, the principle which is praised by John Keats with his "Ode on a Grecian Urn," of somethinglife in motion, frozen in motion for eternity. That idea of sculpture; that idea of painting, in the greatest paintingsthe work of Leonardo da Vinci, the work of Raphael, the work of Rembrandt. The same principle is applied in a different way in the system of Bach, as appreciated by Haydn in a certain degree, especially from his studies of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, as a young man; the work of Mozart, especially from 1782 on; the compositions of Beethoven, of Schubert, of Mendelssohn, of Schumann, and Brahms. These greatest compositions all involve an expression of this same principle.
So you have, in this approach to art; the approach to music, both as sung music, and as instrumental music of Classical form; the approach to sculpture; the approach to construction, and so forththese things are unified. They're unified with the ideas of universal physical principle. They unify what we call "art" and "science" in one conception which is a humanist conception of man, as in the Classical humanist conceptions of the 15th Century.
So, if one participates in the experience of these aspects of culture, as something which must be experienced simultaneously within any individual's mind and experience, then we have a Classical conception of ourselves, as an individual within society, and then we are unified, rather than being, as otherwise tends to be the case, fragmented. So this is the necessity, to do this, not because we have to learn this, or learn that, or learn this, but because we need to feel a rounded sense, emotionally, intellectually, of what it is to be human, as opposed to being an animal. We hunger for that realization, especially in times of crisisa sense of our identity as human. And it's the strength of identity, so encouraged, that gives people the strength to face the great challenges of leadership in society.
Question: If, in the technological process in Peru, they could create a kind of nuclear plant, and use cold fusion for agricultural activities becauseas I understand itwith cold fusion, you can produce a great quantity of energy, and the cheapest fuel is sea water. And I don't know if it can be done here, and where things currently stand with advances in cold fusion that are being worked on in the United States, and if there is a serious program to study it. I don't know that they are doing this now in the United States, and if it could be done in other countries, like Peru. Thank you.
LaRouche: Well, look, the idea of cold fusion as a source of energy was generally much exaggerated and misinterpreted. Cold fusion, so called, was actually a branch of physical chemistry, an anomaly in physical chemistry, which goes with a certain part of the Periodic Table, in the area of platinum and palladium very specific effect. It's extremely important, because there are certain aspects of the concept of the Periodic Table which are unresolved to the present day.
I have a friend of oursLarry Hecht has been involved much with this. He's trying to continue the work in a new direction of an old friend of ours, [Dr. Robert Moon], who did a lot of work in this area of physical chemistry, who died in 1989. So, we're continuing this.
So, experimentally, for fundamental scientific questions, what is called cold fusion, involves types of experiments, which have been understood, in part, since at least the 1920s, and are extremely important. The idea of using this as a substitute source of power is a mistake. It has a significance which we do not yet understand, though we understand the questions which these experiments tend to get into.
What we do have, is we have presently, we have very effective designs of high-temperature gas-cooled nuclear reactors, fission reactors. These run, in the present design, which is the so-called Jülich design from Germanythis design runs from about 120 to 200 megawatts of power. They are self-regulated in the sense that when the heat rises, the temperature rises in the reaction, that slows down the reaction automatically, keeping the weight of reaction within certain limits. Because the power is small, less than the 1.2 gigawatt type of reactors, and because it's much cheaper to construct these, because when you construct the big reactors, you have to do a lot of curing of concrete, which would take three to five years to cure the concrete, of simply the reactor. And often, you want a reactor much sooner than that.
So with a smaller, gas-cooled reactor of this high-temperature type, you can do several things. First of all, you can produce power. And you can produce power without the cost of transportation of coal or oil or so forth. And without the pollution effects. Also, not only can you produce power, but with a high-temperature, gas-cooled reactor, you can produce fuel. You can produce fuel, for example, from water. You can produce hydrogen-based fuels, by disassociation of water. These fuels then can power motor vehicles, trains, aircraft, and so forth. The wasted power from such facilities can be used as useful power, for heat, for desalination, and so forth, all these kinds of things.
So therefore, for a country like Peru, with its particular terrain, such reactors are ideal, because they permit us to set up new communities, which are, in a sense, self-powered, in that sense. If you need a gigawatt, you use four or five of these different, individual plants, which go up quicker, they're easier to maintain, the safety problems are much less, because when they have a problem, they shut down automatically, until the engineers can come in to fix the problem, or melt on you. So these are ideal.
So right now, I think the right is, for a country like Peru, and so forth, is to have the right to build and acquire such facilities, to train Peruvians in the development and use of such facilities, to use the existence of such facilities to create a more educated engineering cadre in the sciences. And to create new branches of industry, and so forth. So this is what I think we should be looking at. And we also need a conception of this throughout the Americas.
For example, you take the case of Brazil. It's a related case. Brazil is a place which needs precisely such types of reactors. It's a vast area, relatively, much of it very thinly populated, so you're going to build concentrations of population in urban centers, within Brazil. Therefore, this is the type of reactor combination you need. Now, if Brazil needs it, and other countries in the Americas have a similar need, then, obviously, this is a technology which should be characteristic of South America. It should also be characteristic of Mexico. So we should have the technology, we should share it, we should use it. And as far as the so-called cold fusion, we have to continue, as our friend Larry Hecht is doing, to put forward this work of our friend from Chicago [Dr. Moon], and get this research on the nature of the nuclear structures worked through, the so-called Archimedean solid method done.
But the cold fusion should be looked at as an area of experiment of which a certain mythology was built. It has a very specific significance in physical chemistry. That should be pursued. It may lead to who knows what benefits. We should seek those benefits, but in the meantime, we should concentrate on, right now, the fission we have.
Question: My proposal would be: We have entitled our cadre school, "Stop the Imperium Insanum with a New Bretton Woods." With the war against Iraq, a world empire has been practically installed: My question thus, is, what chances are there for nations like Germany, France, Russia and China to lead the world to a New Bretton Woods? With you in the White House it would be easier, but we need it now! Thank you.
LaRouche: [Laughs] Yes. Absolutely true. Even without the White House.
The first thing you doI don't know if you've all seen this transmission; I know it's been done in English; I don't know if it's been done in Spanish yeton "The Children of Satan." Now, this pamphlet, or pamphlet length, which is on the Internet siteI know in English; I don't know if it's in Spanish yetthis is a compilation of several pieces, including one by me, on the question of the issue of the authors, inside the United States, who have authored this imperial policy of warfareof international fascism, world fascism, is what it really is called. And so, much of the questions in this direction should probably refer to the content of that report, entitled, "The Children of Satan."
Now, I'll add one thing to it, which is extremely important. I referred to it earlier, but just in case you have not read that report, let me just summarize it here, as part of the answer.
You have a group whose birth was in Nazi Germany, or pre-Nazi Germany, but from the same sources as the Nazis. They were existentialists. They are typified by a man who became a professor at the University of Chicago, who came from Marburg, GermanyLeo Strauss. Now this group of people were trained under Strauss, in successive generations: There's now a total of four generations. These are the people who are the controlling influence, the so-called Neo-Cons, the Chickenhawks, who are controlling the President of the United States, currently, in the war policy just expressed by the war against Iraq. These people are fascists; they intend to set up a world fascist system, with all of the evil qualities of Hitler's fascism, but going a bit further.
Now, what the pamphlet does, is describe these people, and the thing to bear in mind is the ideology. People often look at something and say, "These people are bad because they do this, A; they do that, B; they do this," and so forth. That's not the way to understand evil. That may define bad acts, objectionable acts, but that doesn't tell you what evil is. Because evil is something deeper than simply bad practices or bad habits. It's a state of mind, a desire to do evil.
Now, where this particular kind of evil came from, it came out of, in particular, the ancient cult of Dionysus in ancient Greece; but it came more specifically, more immediately, from the aftermath of Napoleon Bonaparte's dictatorship (we could probably compare him to Maximillian, who was one of the successors to Napoleon Bonaparte, in a very meaningful way). But, Hegel, in the success of Napoleon at the Battle of Jena-Auerstadt, became a Romantic enthusiast for Napoleon Bonaparte, and made a theory, which he developed, based on his almost sexual obsession, admiration for Napoleon Bonaparte, the Emperor. This became Hegel's theory of the state and of history. In Hegel's state, came the idea of "the end of history": that is, a stage of mankind where history stops; that is, the development of mankind, in the historical sense, ceases, and a fixed world order comes into existence, a permanent world order of mankind, which we call today, fascism. That is Hegel's theory of the state.
Now Nietzsche's theory of the state and society is an elaboration of Hegel's, which is based on this idea of the "superman," a man who comes in a period of great crisis for humanity, is able to seize power in humanity, by committing an act so monstrous, so evil, that humanity gets down on the ground and begs for survival at his mercy. This is the mentality of the people around Leo Strauss. This is the mentality of the Chickenhawk crowd. This is what we're up againstnot just ordinary corruption, but this kind of evil, which you've seen manifested in the pushing for the war against Iraq, against the United Nations, and so forth and so on.
So that's our key problem.
What we have to do therefore, is we have to understand the state of mind of this kind of evil, not just to observe this evil. We have to understand how it works. We have to recognize it. We have to recognize what kind of behavior it generates, and where that comes from. And therefore, when we produced this report, it was to show people not that the Bush Administration is bad, or that the people controlling Bush presently are badthat's one thing. The point is, we have in society, we've had for a long period of time, a nest within the U.S., which has produced four generations of Utopians, all headed in this direction, who have gotten increasing power in our universities, increasing power in our institutions, but are now a bunch of lackeys, academic-type lackeys, who control the government of the United States, from the top. It's a small group, relatively speaking, which could be pushed out of power rather quickly. But we have to understand what the nature of this enemy is, and we have to understand what is wrong with society, that society allows such an evil to come into such prominence, and to gain such influence.
That is one of the functions which I've projected for the youth movement, in the case of the Gauss: That if you understand what this Gauss issue is, as it is expressed in the 1799 paper, as it echoes the propositions developed by Archytus, and by Plato earlier, on the question of the elementary principles of physical geometry, then, you get a sense of how the human mind is organized. And the secret of real politics is to understand one's own mind, and the mind of others, by understanding how the mind is organized, how the human mind is organized, as distinct from the animal mind. And that's what's crucial. That's what I hope we can get across in the process of discussion of the youth movement, as opposed to what normal politics are considered to be.
U.S. Economic/Financial News
Is Greenspan Preparing His Own Monetary 'Shock and Awe'?
The New York Post ran a column by Fox-TV financial correspondent Terry Keenan on April 13, warning that Federal Reserve Board chairman Alan Greenspan is preparing his own version of "shock and awe," should the U.S. and global economic situation continue to disintegrate, once the dust has settled in Iraq. "As Saddam's regime toppled ... Wall Street returned its attention to an enemy closer to home: the stubbornly weak economy," Keenan began. "The generals in this war are hunkered down at Fed headquarters on Constitution Avenue, but, make no mistake, Greenspan and Company are readying a 'shock and awe' campaign of their own."
She elaborated, "Such a plan would include an array of weapons seldom, if ever, used in the central bank's 90-year historyincluding the direct purchase of long-term Treasuriesin a bid to stave off another recession or dreaded deflation." While hoping that "this mother of all rescue plans" will never be needed, Keenan quoted ISI economist Ed Hyman that it will be clear within the next two months whether the end of the Iraq war will kick-start the U.S. economy. "That Fed officials have been openly discussing such drastic measures has Wall Street on edge."
Keenan suggested that one sign that Greenspan has decided that the Fed must launch a new "wall of money" systemic bailout, will be a decision, perhaps even prior to the May 6 FOMC meeting, to cut Fed fund rates by 0.5%. Keenan concluded by invoking the legendary Rothschild bankers: "Meanwhile, most investors seem to be following the advice Baron Rothschild gave nearly 200 years ago: 'Buy at the sound of cannons, sell at the sound of trumpets.' "
Investors Continue To Flee Wall Street; No Sign of Return
Accompanying the Terry Keenan column (see above), the Sunday New York Post ran a full page of coverage, on individual investors' pullout of the stock market. In 2002, investors dumped a total of $27.1 billion worth of stocks, over and above losses in stock values that people suffered. In the first two months of 2003, another $11.5 billion fled the equity markets for safer, albeit low-yield investments in bonds, money-market funds and other assets, according to the Post's Suzanne McGee.
"That investors, burned by the financial implosion of the last three years, have fled the stock market in droves surprises no one," McGee began. "Whether and when they'll return, however, is the question all of Wall Street is pondering." One New Jersey broker told the Post, "Fear is everything for my clients these days. My clients seem to have lost the 'greed' motivation. They just don't want to hear about stocks from me."
Patrick McGurn of Institutional Shareholder Services in Rockville, Maryland added that another massive flight from the market is almost imminent. "If that happens, McGurn adds, the U.S. stock market might even end up looking like it did in the post-Depression yearswith individual investors clinging to the sidelines." McGurn concluded, "I think we're facing the possibility of a 'lost generation' of investors."
America's Pension System in Crisis; Savings Shrink as Boomers Face Retirement
The widening gap between the pension and retirement packages provided to corporate CEOs and the miserable state of affairs for average workers, who have been forced to take the hit for pension-fund losses on the stock market, and revised retirement packages, has left more and more workers to fend for themselves, according to the lead story in the Washington Post Business section April 13.
On the same day, the New York Post featured an article on the looming retirement of the Baby Boomer generation, beginning in 2011. The Post cited statistics released by the American Association of Retired Persons indicating that four in 10 retirees wind up living below the poverty level at some point. The AARP data also showed that the 20% of Baby Boomers who earn the least, have a median net worth of $7,000 (including real-estate holdings), while the top 20% average $555,000. "And those who have the least money stashed away are also the least likely to have an employer-provided pension plan."
New York's Mayor Issues 2004 Budget, Contingency Plan Threatening Huge Layoffs, Firehouse Closings
As New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced his 2004 fiscal budget, he raised the specter of the 1970s Big MAC "planned shrinkage" policy of fascist austerity imposed on the city by a bankers' cabal headed by Lazard Freres. The decline in tax revenues has led to a $3.8-billion budget hole. The cuts, including of immunizations and sanitation jobs, will open the door to disease epidemics amidst a collapsing physical and social infrastructure.
To close $600 million of the gap, Bloomberg announced he will lay off 194 Fire Department civilian positions; 100 Fire Marshals; 1,631 non-teacher school employees; close four children services care facilities, which cuts 528 jobs; close 12 of 30 child health clinics; cut 165 school health jobs; end the Hepatitis B immunization initiative; and end the take-home weekend meals for 7,500 senior citizens. These cuts are on top of $3.2 billion having been axed from the budget over the last 16 months resulting in 14,000 lay-offs among other program cuts.
But this is not the worst of it. Bloomberg simultaneously announced a "contingency" plandubbed a "doomsday" plan by the local medianecessary if state aid is not forthcoming. It will slash another $1 billion out of the budget. These cuts will include 10,000 layoffs and closure of 30-40 more firehouses. In addition:
*Police: The July 2003 cadet class will be scrapped, severely reducing the police workforce, and 1,700 administrative jobs cut;
*Fire: Reduce overtime payments;
*Sanitation: Layoffs of 1,057 employees impacting core collection, recycling, street-cleaning functions;
*Education: Eliminate all after-school educational programs and summer school;
*Human Resources: Eliminate city-funded HIV/AIDS case management and the emergency food assistance program;
*Parks & Recreation: Close all outdoor pools and City-funded recreation centers; and
*Homeless Services: End outreach programs, and lay off 109 cleaning staff for homeless shelters.
Bill Introduced To Repeal California Electricity Dereg
California State Senator Joe Dunn (D-Santa Ana) and 10 other legislators introduced the Repeal of Electricity Deregulation Act of 2003, Senate Bill 888, on Feb. 21. When introduced, the bill stated simply the intention of the Legislature to repeal California's 1996 deregulation law, AB1890. On April 8, Dunn and colleagues amended the bill, spelling out how the state will regain control of its electric-utility industry and infrastructure.
"Customer choice" will be ended. Utilities will be guaranteed a fair 10% return on investment, charging a "cost-of-service" price, (not a "free-market" steal-as-much-as-you-can price), in return for making the investments to meet the needs of their customers. Incentives would encourage utilities to invest in transmission lines, and the moratorium on companies selling their power-generating assets would be extended from 2005 to 2010.
When introducing the bill, Sen. Dunn declared, in reference to deregulation: "We aren't mending it, we're ending it." The bill was immediately supported by Assembly Speaker Herb Wesson, and Senate President Pro Tem John Burton. So far, only Democrats have supported the bill, with debate scheduled to start in three weeks.
For the past two years, Dunn has chaired a committee investigating price manipulation in the state's energy market.
Nation Needs Railroads, Rep. Rothman Tells Committee
"We cannot live in a modern nation without railroads," declared Rep. Steven Rothman (D-N.J.), during a hearing April 16 of the Transportation Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee, on Amtrak's passenger rail system. "[T]he fundamental question for the people of this country and the people of this committee is, do we want a railroad in the United States?" Rothman continued. "If we don't have a national railroad system that works," he warned, "then we are going to be in trouble as a nation."
Rothman blasted as a "disgrace," the failure to subsidize passenger rail service. "I think the whole view of Amtrak is skewed. It's wrong to say that it needs to be self-sustaining when the airlines aren't." He characterized the funding level provided by the Bush Administration and previous ones as "a bread-and-water diet." "It's absolutely obscene, and it is without justification in terms of how we need to function as a country." In particular, the Administration's proposed $900-million Amtrak FY2004 budget, [Amtrak has requested $1.8 billion] "is a joke," he said, "considering the capital money that's been withheld from Amtrak for all these years."
"What will make America stronger, what will improve our economy, will be an investment in our infrastructure: roads, rails, bridges, schools." "I hope that this Administration improves its view of the necessity of rail ... and to rebuild our nation's rail capacity."
Airlines Unravel; Congress Offers Band-Aids
On April 17, Delta Airlines warned of "the greatest financial crisis" in its history, announcing it will furlough 200 more pilots. It posted a first quarter net loss of $466 million. US Airways will lay off 890 flight attendants in May and June, cutting back its staffing on flights to the minimum required by the FAA.
American Airlines, the largest in the world, only averted bankruptcy on April 16 because its flight attendants held an extraordinary "re-vote," and narrowly accepted give-backs they had rejected the day before. American's unions are now furious to learn of a plan to protect the pensions of its executives in the event of a bankruptcy later. The give-back package ratified by the rand and file of AA's three unions means, besides wage cuts averaging 20%, a loss of 5-6,000 jobs. American said it is immediately reducing both its management ranks and its support staff by 5%, with the goal of cutting management by another 5% by July 1.
In response to the crisis, Congressional negotiators agreed to give $3.2 billion to the failing airlines, to "help" with their losses from the Iraq war and security mandates. Of that, $2.4 billion will be given within the next 30 days, mainly to allow the airlines to pay debts that would otherwise bankrupt or liquidate them. This was reportedly at the insistence of House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), who is trying desperately to save United, headquartered in his district. The bill gives a 26-week extension of unemployment compensation to airline workers, of whom 15% are now officially unemployed.
In August 2002, Lyndon LaRouche warned that the air transport system would be lost without the emergency measures he proposed.
Machine-Tool Consumption by U.S. Industry Plummets, Again
Machine-tool consumption by U.S. industry fell by 20%, or $133.78 million in February, compared to one year ago. For the first two months of 2003, U.S. machine-tool consumption totalled $265.55 million, down 24.5% compared to January-February 2002proof of the urgent need for LaRouche's Super-TVA policy.
Ignoring the reality of the manufacturing breakdown collapse, American Machine Tool Distributors' Association President Ralph Nappi said, "the recent developments in Iraq should begin to clear up the uncertainty that has existed for many months."
Machine-tool consumptionthe most fundamental aspect of an advanced industrial economyhad already fallen by the end of 2002, to a paltry 37% of the level in 1997.
Industrial Production Reaches New Lows; Auto Hit Hard
According to new figures published by the Federal Reserve April 15, U.S. industrial production dropped by 0.5% in March compared to February. The decline was more than double what economists on average had expected, and it followed on a decline in the previous month.
Among the hardest hit sectors was automobile production, shrinking 1.8% in March after already falling 2.4% in February. According to industry statistics, annualized automobile sales in the first quarter of 2003 amounted to 15.9 million, the weakest since the third quarter of 1998. In spite of new incentive schemes, total inventories reached 4.01 million vehicles in March, a new record.
Overall production of consumer durable goods, including automobiles, furniture, and electronics, fell 0.8% in March after falling 1.7% in February. Utility production was down 4.1% in March, which is being blamed on unusually warm weather in March. It was the biggest drop since January 1998.
New Unemployment Claims Jump; Mid-Atlantic Manufactures Fall
New claims for jobless benefits, shot up by 30,000 to 442,000 for the week ended April 11the second-highest level in the past year, and the ninth consecutive week that claims exceeded 400,000. The four-week average of new claims, rose to 424,750, the most since May 4, 2002.
The index of manufacturing activity in the Mid-Atlantic region, fell in April to minus 8.8, the first time the index has been negative for two straight months since December 2001, according to the latest monthly survey of firms by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. An ominous sign, the index for new orders fell seven points to minus 11.2, with only 25% of manufacturers attributing the decline to the war in Iraq.
Former Top IT Execs Hit the Skids; Take Low-Pay Jobs
The New York Times Magazine ran a lengthy cover-story profile April 13 of a group of computer industry ex-top executives who all lost their jobs during the post-2000 crash of the IT sector, and have only been able to find work in the low-paying retail sector, as sales personnel. The case studies are poignant, but the statistics underlying them are the real shocker: Referring to the computer sector, author Jonathan Mahler reported that, between December 2000 and January 2003, the industry shed 41% of its jobs. Here is an excerpt:
"While the recession of the early '90s took a heavy toll on white-collar workers, this one seems to have institutionalized the phenomenon. Advanced degrees, no matter how prestigious, offer little protection. The economy is grim nationwide, but the picture in New York City is especially bleak. Since the end of 2000, the media-and-communications sector has cut 15% of its jobs, telecommunications 27%, advertising 25%. Eighteen percent of jobs on Wall Street have been slashed, and firms continue to lay people off. Given the delirium with which most high-tech jobs were first created, there's no reason to believe that many of themand the jobs in other sectors that they generatedwill come back anytime soon."
'Mis-Fortune 500' Announces Job Cuts, Plant Closings
Reflecting the manufacturing and airline-industry breakdown, U.S. corporations are slashing payrolls, operations.
*Boeing issued 60-day lay-off notices to 1,060 of its high-skill employees, to take effect June 20, making 2,370 layoffs this year, so far; the aircraft maker has slashed 32,300 jobs since Sept. 11, 2001.
*General Motors will temporarily lay off 1,400 workers due to a shutdown from May 12-June 6 of its Saturn plant in Delaware; then, GM will cut unspecified number of jobs as it slashes production by a whopping 42%.
*General Electric's jet engine division will eliminate up to 800 jobs by the end of June, due to the disintegration of the airline sector; the unit's global employment has fallen by 15% (4,500 jobs) since October 2001.
*Maytag, the third-biggest U.S. home-appliance maker, will cut 500 jobs, or 8% of its workforce, as first-quarter earnings plunged by 39%.
*Corning, the fiber-optics maker, is slashing 1,000 jobs and shutting a Pennsylvania plant that makes cathode ray tube glass used in television sets.
*Motorola, the world's second-largest mobile-phone company, will cut 3,000 additional jobs, as part of a drive to slash $3 billion more in costs in 2003 and 2004.
World Economic News
Bundesbank President: Forget About a Quick Recovery
Just because the war in Iraq might soon come to an end, doesn't mean there will be a quick recovery of the world economy, warned Ernst Welteke, president of the German Bundesbank, and member of the ruling SPD party. He was speaking April 16 at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College in New York City on the theme "A European perspective on the world economy." The present state of the world economy, Welteke said, "is characterized by unusually high uncertainty.... The ongoing war in Iraq is weighing on the world economy. Financial markets are fickle; confidence among businesses and consumers remains subdued," he said.
"We must, however, not be fooled into regarding the war in Iraq as the sole source of uncertainty or the predominant issue for the world economy. Uncertainty was around before that war was on the horizon, and uncertainty will stay on for a while even after ahopefully fastend to the war. What is more, uncertainty stemming from geopolitical strife seems to be deflecting our focus from some fundamental imbalances."
The "fragile" world economy is "depending far too heavily" on U.S. demand at a time when there are alarming "weaknesses" in the U.S. economy itself: "The balance sheets of businesses and consumers are debt-laden, while the public sector also has returned to dissaving. In the environment of weak capital spending, the current account deficit of 5% of GDP is no longer investment-driven. Therefore, it is more of a concern for me now than it was during the last couple of years. More recently, the equity markets' boom-bust scenario has left pension liabilities underfunded on a grand scale."
After attacking the recent "fashion" of "German-bashing," Welteke admitted that the Bundesbank views the current domestic and international "confidence crisis" concerning the German economy as "highly serious." Due to record-high insolvencies, he said, the German banking sector is indeed in a "difficult position."
British Workers Face Mandatory Retirement, Pension Cuts
British workers will be forced to work five years longer, or face sharp pension cuts, the London Times reported April 18. "Millions of employees will be forced to work until they are 70, or face vastly reduced company pension payouts, under new proposals. The plans, to be published by the Government this summer, will impose a mandatory retirement age on Britain's workers for the first time," the Times said. The move "is likely to meet fierce opposition from workers and unions."
The government's plans to tackle the "growing pension-funding crisis" in Britain will be unveiled in a consultation paper from the Department of Trade and Industry. The background to this is obviously the devastation of corporate pension schemes following the three-year stock-market crash. The Times quoted a British pensions expert, Tom McPhail, saying: "These proposals will come as a shock to a lot of people who will see their pension substantially reduced if they want to retire at what they regard as the traditional pension age. Many people will be very upset by this, and will be forced to re-examine their expectations for retirement."
Indonesia Signals Move Out of Dollar; Will Asia Follow?
"Indonesia may dump dollar; rest of Asia too?" reads the headline of a feature on Bloomberg on April 17: "Pertamina, Indonesia's state oil company, dropped a bombshell recently. It's considering replacing the U.S. dollar with the euro in its oil and gas trades." While the international media barely took notice of the Indonesian move, due to the Iraq war and the SARS crisis, it "could have major implications for the world's biggest economy. Other Asian countries may not be far behind any move in Indonesia to dump the dollar. The reasons for this are economic and political, and they could trigger a realignment that undermines U.S. bond and stock markets over time."
The economic reasoning is rather obvious: After 12 rate cuts by the Fed, U.S. interest rates are at a 40-year low, and earnings on dollar assets are therefore very low. At the same time, the weak economy and the huge current account deficit, could send the U.S. dollar further down against other major currencies, even after an 18% drop against the euro over the last 12 months. However, there is more behind Asian moves to lower the dependency on the dollar: "Perhaps the biggest risk for the dollar, at least in the eyes of some analysts in Asia, is uncertainty surrounding U.S. foreign policy. Now that war in Iraq seems to be wrapping up, Asian markets are wondering if the U.S. will pursue regime change elsewhere.
"What if, for example, the U.S. began setting the stage for another preemptive attack in the Middle East or East Asia?"
On the morning of April 17, the U.S. dollar at one point plunged to $1.0972 to the euro, its weakest since March 13, coming very close to a new four-year-low.
Asian Airlines, Airports Collapsing Due to SARS Crisis
At Changi Airport in Singapore, the number of passengers passing through last month fell by 11.2% from March last year, and by 38.3% for the first week of April. Watching the airlines continue cutting flights across SARS-afflicted Asia, American investment bank Merrill Lynch likened the crisis to "watching a train crash." Flights are being cancelled at the rate of 19.7%. This far exceeds the 7% fall in flights at Changi in the aftermath of Sept. 11and SARS "hot spots" Hong Kong and China are hit even worse. South Korea's Incheon International Airport reported a 36% drop in passengers on overseas flights in the first half of this month against the same period last year, Bloomberg News reported.
Hong Kong's No. 2 airline Dragonair said it would extend a 50% cut in its services into next month and cancel another two flights to China, and more in May. Vietnam's second airline, Pacific Airlines, announced suspension of its Hanoi-to-Danang service until May 15, after a 30% fall in bookings, AFP reported.
Cathay Pacific may ground its passenger fleet in May because of SARS.
United States News Digest
Bush Vetoes Syria War Plan, Says Guardian
"Bush Vetoes Syria War Plan" was the front-page headline of the London Guardian April 15, which reported the following: "The White House has privately ruled out suggestions that the U.S. should go to war against Syria following its military success in Iraq, and has blocked preliminary planning for such a campaign in the Pentagon, the Guardian learned yesterday." It goes on to say that Donald Rumsfeld "ordered contingency plans for a war on Syria to be reviewed following the fall of Baghdad," and that the DOD's "Doug Feith, and William Luti, ... were asked to put together a briefing paper on the case for war against Syria, outlining its role in supplying weapons to Saddam Hussein, its links with Middle East terrorist groups, and its allegedly advanced chemical weapons programme. Mr. Feith and Mr. Luti were both instrumental in persuading the White House to go to war in Iraq."
The paper added: "Mr. Feith and other conservatives now playing important roles in the Bush Administration, advised the Israeli government in 1996 that it could 'shape its strategic environment ... by weakening, containing and even rolling back Syria'"in a reference to the Clean Break document.
The paper continued: "However, President George Bush, who faces re-election next year with two perilous nation-building projects, in Afghanistan and Iraq, on his hands, is said to have cut off discussion among his advisers about the possibility of taking the 'war on terror' to Syria."
The paper quoted a Washington intelligence source who says, "The talk about Syria didn't go anywhere. Basically, the White House shut down the discussion."
Tony Blair was cited, as also being opposed to any move against Syria. "I have the advantage of talking to the American President on a regular basis and I can assure you there are no plans to invade Syria," he said. "Neither has anyone on the other side of the water, as far as I am aware, said there are plans."
The conclusion of the article is that the U.S. will "use its military ascendancy in the region to exert diplomatic and economic pressure on Damascus and resolve what Washington sees as longstanding problems, including the threat to Israel posed by Damascus-backed Islamic extremists, Hezbollah, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad, and Syria's chemical weapons."
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said April 15 that U.S. forces had shut down a pipeline used for allegedly illegal oil shipments from Iraq to Syria. In a question-and-answer session with reporters, Rumsfeld denied coalition forces had destroyed any pipelines. "We have preserved infrastructure in that country," he said.
Brit Empire Propagandist: America Recalls British Heyday
Writing in the Times of London April 12, a leading British Empire propagandist chortled that American leaders today are like the leaders of the British Empire at its mid-Victorian heyday. Andrew Roberts, a biographer of Churchill, wrote: "The sense of vigour and confidence that the American political leadership has shown since last November is reminiscent of nothing so much as those mid-Victorians who convinced themselves that the British Empire was the foremost force for good in an otherwise debased world." He went on: "If you need a 19th-century counterpart for the neo-conservative movement led by Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, and Condoleezza Rice, look at the idealistic imperialists produced by Balliol and other Oxford colleges from the 1850s." According to Roberts, "The victory [sic] in Iraq is a major step forward."
The empire is on the way up, and the U.S. "will notit almost cannotstop at Baghdad. An internal dynamic begins to take over...." Roberts cautioned that "of course, that is precisely the moment when hubris and nemesis have struck earlier empires," referring to reversals of Rome's Augustus Caesar, Spain's Philip II, France's Napoleon, and Britain itself, in the Boer War. And so, the American imperial expansion might end up crashing.
In War's Aftermath, Rummy Wants More Power
According to the New York Times of April 14, in the aftermath of the Iraq war, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has sent to Capitol Hill proposed legislation that would give him greater authority over personnel policy at the Pentagon, from senior generals and admirals down to the lowest enlisted ranks. At the top levels, Rumsfeld wants to be able to lengthen tenures of four-star officers, and allow one- and two-star officers, whose path to promotion would be affected by the longer tenures of four-stars, to retire early. Already Rumsfeld personally interviews every candidate for positions of one-star and above, leading some in the officer corps to charge that Rumsfeld is weeding out the high command to preserve only like-minded officers.
At the lower ranks, Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness David Chu says that there are 300,000 support jobs currently held by military people that could be done by civilians. While the Times article doesn't say so, it's likely that the such an initiative would be folded into ongoing efforts to privatize hundreds of thousands of government jobs.
Missing from the proposed legislation, however, is an earlier rumored proposal to consolidate staff positions on the Joint Staff under the Secretary of Defense. Under current law, the Joint Staff serves the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and some officers viewed the proposal as an attempt by Rumsfeld to rein in the independent analysis of the Joint Staff.
Bush Scales Back Tax Cut to $550 Billion
As part of a move to focus on his domestic agenda, now that "we've won" in Iraq, said the White House, President Bush is demanding $550 billion in tax cuts over 10 yearsthe amount approved by the Housedown from his original proposal of $726 billion. The Senate has approved just $350 billion, insisting like the House that the full tax cut would cause rising deficits. In an example of Greenspan-like lunacy, Bush said the money from the tax cuts would "be in circulation, which will be good for our economy."
Over the next two weeks, 25 Cabinet and sub-Cabinet officials will speak at 57 events in more than 40 cities to push the Administration's tax-cut package.
Under the headline, "It's the economy, stupid," the London Guardian's Mark Tran warns that if Bush does not attend to the faltering economy in the U.S., he could lose the next election, repeating the fate of Bush, Sr. The tax-cut plan would not be much stimulus, writes Tran, yet would cause bigger deficits.
DLC Chair Evan Bayh: Dems Should Stop Anti-War Discussions
Senator Evan Bayh (D-Ind.), chairman of the organized-crime-linked Democratic Leadership Council, has said that opponents of the Iraq war and the Bush policy should cut it out, because "equivocating about whether Saddam Hussein's departure is a good thing ... doesn't help the Democratic Party." Bayhposter boy for the "second Republican Party"insists that Bush has been so strengthened by the insane war that the Democratic Party can only nominate a Presidential candidate that can rival Bush's image as "a commander-in-chief in dangerous times." Bayh is portrayed by the New York Times as leading the pack of consultants and campaign managers who are running scared about the "victory" of the Iraq war, and telling their candidates to back off. Even Sen. John Kerry's campaign manager, Jim Jordan, is quoted as saying that unless Kerry can "make a compelling and convincing case ... that he can keep Americans safe ... we're looking at McGovern-like results," referring to Nixon's landslide defeat of anti-Vietnam War candidate George McGovern in 1972.
One "prominent Democratic senator" who did not want to be named, warned that the big difference between 1992, when Bush 41 could be defeated on the economic issues after the first Gulf war, and now, is that "this Administration will never end the war...." This Administration will constantly play the "war on terrorism," and might expand the "never-ending military commitment to Iraq" to other countries. According to a well-informed Washington political source, this DLC/Lieberman-led argument is rampant, pushed by the professional consultants and "image makers" taking over the party. This is one of the reasons, said this source, that former President Clinton went public at the Conference Board, with criticisms that he has only expressed privately beforeno one else (other than LaRouche) is about to take on Bush and his war party (for Clinton's remarks, see USA DIGEST SUPPLEMENT).
Fight Shaping Up Over Extension of Patriot Act
"Over my dead body," says the Republican chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, when talking about efforts by the Justice Department to make permanent many of the powers in the 2001 U.S.A./Patriot Act. Representative James Sensenbrenner (R-Wisc.) also says that it is "way premature" for Congress to consider the Justice Department's new package of anti-terrorism measuresknown as Patriot IIuntil the Department of Justice has proven the merits of the first Patriot Act. Last week, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) circulated an amendment to remove the "sunset" provision from the first Patriot Act, under which it expires in 2005 unless renewed; but Hatch later withdrew his amendment.
The major newspaper in Hatch's home state, the Salt Lake City Tribune, ran an article highly critical of Hatch last Sunday, quoting both conservative and civil-liberties groups as charging Hatch with leading the charge to strip away civil liberties from Americans. Right-wing groups criticizing Hatch include the American Conservative Union, the Eagle Forum, and Americans for Tax Reform.
Another Senator carrying water for Ashcroft's Justice Department is Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), who is spearheading a bill to water down the "agent of a foreign power" provision in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, so that a lone individual without foreign connections could be targetted for secret wiretaps and break-ins.
Ibero-American News Digest
Brazil Congressman: Eurasian Land-Bridge the Target of War Party in Washington
On April 11, Brazilian Congressman Irapuan Teixeira, of the Party for Rebuilding of National Order (PRONA), headed by Congressman Eneas Carneiro, gave his fellow Deputies a short but devastating briefing on the "perpetual war" strategy behind the Bush Administration's Iraq war.
Teixeira's speech on the floor of the Chamber of Deputies continued what was begun by Dr. Eneas when he addressed the Chamber on March 27. In that speech, Dr. Eneas called upon Brazilian President Lula da Silva to help stop the U.S.-U.K. war in the Middle East, by deploying Brazil's sole feasible weapon in today's circumstances: to break with the International Monetary Fund system, and declare a debt moratorium, an historical act which would force the world to face the reality that the current world financial system is finished (see INDEPTH, EIW #14).
The Bush Administration has become the "captive of a group of neo-fascist ideologues coordinated by Vice President Dick Cheney," Teixeira told his fellow Congressmen. This is no simple war for the control of natural resources, "even it if is undeniable that the United States of America and its few allies, or better, only ally, could benefit from it in the short term," he said. "The offensive against Iraq and the accusations against the regime of Saddam Hussein were merely pretexts to set in motion a Clash of Civilizations, a state of perpetual war, which would begin against the Islamic peoples, and would extend like a trail of gunpowder along the routes of Eurasian integration."
Nor is this war some natural product of capitalism, nor is it designed to provoke an economic recovery, he said. Rather, it is a result of the transformation of the world economy into a "speculative financial casino" over the last three decades, a transformation brought about by the domination of the Anglo-Dutch liberal ideology. This has led to "the systemic crisis which is today sounding its final death-rattle," Teixeria stated, adding that "the primary objective of the imperial impulse" driving the war is to bring about "the destruction of the effort to establish a Eurasian Land-Bridge capable of triggering the urgent process of world economic recovery."
Teixera's speech drew upon the pamphlet published by the Brazilian branch of Lyndon LaRouche's Ibero-American Solidarity Movement (MSIA), titled Imperium Insanum. Teixeira did not mention LaRouche or the pamphlet, but he cited "journalist Lorenzo Carrasco," well-known as EIR's correspondent in Brazil, as a source for the documents demonstrating the war party's longstanding intentions. The Imperum Insanum pamphlet is providing Brazilians with U.S. Presidential candidate Lyndon LaRouche's analysis of the situation. In less than a month, 26,000 copies have been distributed by networks in every corner of Brazil, and the demand for more copies is increasing.
Globalist OAS Meeting Cancelled
The Organization of American States' (OAS) long-planned Foreign Ministers-level Special Conference on Hemispheric Security, scheduled for May 6-8 in Mexico, has been officially postponed until October. In four days of meeting, April 7-10, the preparatory committee failed to reach a consensus on what the conference would conclude.
The OAS conference head been conceived by the utopians as the place where radical changes in the "architecture" of hemispheric security, to conform to the doctrine of limited sovereignty, could be rammed through under the cover of "fighting terrorism." When the Iraq war began, EIR warned, in an article called "Iraq Treatment Set for Ibero-America by Rumsfeld" (see INDEPTH, EIW #12) that "all bets were off" on whether any Ibero-Americans would continue to cooperate with the utopians' schemes to re-write hemispheric security accords. That evaluation has now proven correct in spades.
The Mexican Permanent Mission to the OAS announced the postponement April 11. "Differences, in approach and in substance, on the key definitions in the draft Political Declaration to be adopted by the Conference ... should be viewed as legitimate and worthy of absolute respect," the Mission said, and thus more time is needed before a consensus can be reached.
An Ibero-American diplomat involved in the preparatory meeting reported that the conference was cancelled after the U.S. said Secretary of State Colin Powell would not attend, because of Mexico's refusal to back the Iraq war. A U.S. military source, involved in the preparations for the conference, could not confirm that report, but said that if the U.S. had done this, it indicates that people have finally recognized that the discussions on how to fight terrorism are in "total disarray," and the parties too far apart to reach any agreement. Ibero-American governments are agreed only on one thing, this source reported: that "the U.S. is certainly off-base" in the way it is fighting terrorism, and that addressing security requires addressing poverty and disease, as much as terrorism.
'LaRouche Factor' in Gubernatorial Campaign in Nuevo Leon
Some interests clearly would like to eliminate the LaRouche factor from the race for Governor of Nuevo Leon, Mexico, where Benjamin Castro, well-known as the leader of Lyndon LaRouche's forces in Monterrey, is running for the office on the ticket of the Social Action Party (PAS).
Castro is getting significant television and radio coverage of his campaign, getting LaRouche's ideas out to a broad audience. In November 2002, LaRouche himself made a highly successful visit to Coahuila, the northern state that borders Nuevo Leon. In Coahuila, LaRouche, the U.S. Democratic Party Presidential pre-candidate, was received by the Governor of Coahuila, and held a series of successful meetings and seminars, including with youth.
But the Castro campaign is hitting a raw nerveleading to harassment and slanders in the press. Typical is the campaign against Castro by the media after his campaign appearance April 3, at the Monterrey Technological Institute, known as "the Tec," where he discussed the global economic and strategic crisis, and LaRouche's solutions.
When a student asked why his campaign platform attacked local popular culture dens called "antros;" Castro answered that it is "stupid" to spend four hours in a disco or "rave," when the world requires sublime leaders, such as Joan of Arc, willing to fight to build great projects ("raves" are all-night concert events where designer drugs and violence are frequently reported).
All well and good, with the students. But the media attacked Castro for not "respecting" the counterculture. It was soon apparent, however, that the media's gripe was LaRouche. On April 4, Milenio newspaper provocatively reported that Castro had called the students "stupid"reporting nothing else. Radio Formula's Antonio de Mendieta then called for banning Castro from the elections, because of his "insulting" remarks. Rosario Barahona, well-known as the hired pen of the Monterrey Group of business interests, attacked Castro in El Norte, demanding "respect" for the Tec students, and their "right" to relax in any way they wish.
De Mendieta also attacked LaRouche, whom he described as the founder of a "Jehovah's Witness-like cult." Radio slanders multiplied, one saying Mr. LaRouche headed a cult like the "Davidians." In another radio program, one founder of the PAS Party, a Sr. Cazares, who opposed Castro's nomination said Castro "required psychological treatment" and he wanted him removed as candidate. The slander of the LaRouche movement as a "cult" started with a group of counterculture journalists in the U.S. affiliated with the drug-promoting magazine High Times. Back in the 1980s, they railed against LaRouche, saying, "He wants to take your drugs away!"
As the election nears, harassment and threats have been increasing against Castro. Provocateurs have deployed to attempt to disrupt meetings; one opponent of LaRouche within the PAS Party itself attempted to beat him up (unsuccessfully); and false reports that Castro is about to announce his resignation have appeared in the press.
Lyndon LaRouche Comments on Cuba
See this week's LATEST FROM LAROUCHE for the transcript of Lyndon LaRouche's April 12 webcast address and dialogue with scores of LaRouche Youth Movement organizers gathered in Mexico City, and in Lima, Peru.
"Collateral damage" from the Iraq war has hit the Caribbean. On April 11, the Castro regime executed three hijackers, and gave four others life sentences, after their April 2 attempt to hijack a domestic ferry to Florida, failed. Brought back to Havana, the leaders of the hijacking were charged with "very grave acts of terrorism," given summary trials and convicted on April 8, and executed by firing squad three days later. That drastic measure followed upon the round-up of 75-80 Cuban dissidents the week that President Bush launched the Iraq war. Those arrested have since been given summary trials, and sentenced to jail terms ranging from six to 28 years, on charges of collaborating with a foreign power against the Cuban government.
U.S. officials have made it clear Cuba is on the Chickenhawk hit list, and the state of mind in the Cuban government is one of preparing for war.
On April 7, James Casonwho heads the U.S. Interest Section in Cuba (since there are no diplomatic relations between Cuba and the U.S.) and who has used his post to host dissident meetings in his official residence, handing out radio equipment to dissidents, etc.gave a provocative speech at the University of Miami, on the "moral imperative" of the United States to bring about "a rapid and peaceful transition toward democracy" in Cuba. Adding a more ominous tone, Cason assert that the U.S. has "strategic interests" in Cuba, and "the continuous disintegration of the Cuban society generates instability in the region and creates the threat of massive migration into the United States."
U.S. Ambassador to the Dominican Republic Hans Hertell, meanwhile, has declared that the removal of Saddam Hussein could serve as a "good example ... for regime change in Cuba," Spain's El Pais daily reported April 14. The war which the U.S. is waging against Iraq, Hertell said, is the "beginning of a 'liberating crusade' in the world, including Cubawhose purpose is to put into practice a democratic system."
Jorge Mas Santos, head of the Miami exile millionaires gang known as the Cuban-American National Foundation, called April 11 for "regime change" in Cuba, and demanded Washington "indict" the Castro brothers, Fidel and Raul. Democratic Senator Joe "Hitler" Lieberman, who is vying with George W. Bush for the campaign money of the Miami Cubans, said the executions of the hijackers prove we cannot go easy on Castro. "We must never waver and never yield until the people of Cuba taste liberty."
Meanwhile, Fidel Castro is giving speeches warning that the United States is throwing "provocations" at the regime, to prepare the way for a military attack. One such speech was delivered on national television on the night of April 11; if Cuba is occupied, "the resistance will last 100 years," Castro said.
Presidents of Brazil and Peru Agree On Cross-Continental Projects
The implementation of bilateral projects necessary to the physical integration of the South American continent, topped the agenda of the April 11 summit of Peru's President Alejandro Toledo and Brazil's Lula da Silva. The final communiqué issued after their meeting emphasizes that the two Presidents agree on the "vital importance" of implementing the continent-wide "Regional Integration Initiative of South America" (IIRSA), adopted at the first South American Summit in Brasilia in September 2000.
Particular attention will be paid to water transportation: completing the north and central branches of the cross-Amazon transportation axis, the Bolivia-Brazil-Peru axis, and the inter-oceanic axis, outlined in IIRSA. "The objective is to make the flow of commerce between the Pacific and the Atlantic a reality, generating opportunities for wealth and sustainable development for the populations along the cited axis and their wider areas of influence," the communiqué states.
President Toledo told Brazil's Valor magazine (April 14 issue) that he considers reaching a "strategic alliance" with Brazil to be one of the three most important goals of his Administration, and he brought ten Cabinet ministers with him for the meeting.
Equally interesting is the decision that the Ministers of Defense of both countries should meet, regarding Peru's getting access to intelligence from Brazil's newly activated Amazon-wide radar surveillance system, SIVAM, crucial for going after the drug trade.
Chavez Regime Organizes Another World Jacobin Meet
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez held a "World Meeting in Solidarity with the Bolivarian Revolution," as part of four days of celebrations organized for the first anniversary of the April 11-13 coup and counter-coup a year ago. He used the occasion to set up a "Bolivarian Forum of the Americas," to spread continental revolution. Attending were Le Monde Diplomatique's Ignacio Ramonet, failed French Socialist Party candidate Jean-Pierre Chevenement, the notorious former First Lady of France, Danielle Mitterrand, and old faces of the terrorist core of Ibero-America's Sao Paulo Forum: Bolivia's Evo Morales, Shafik Handal of El Salvador's FMLN, Gloria Marin of the FARC, Danny Ortega of Nicaragua's Sandinistas, Marta Hanecker of Cuba, among others.
In one of several speeches during these days, Chavez said he had made the mistake of sheathing his sword once, and he would never do that again. In 1973, Chilean President Salvador Allende's mistake was to try for an unarmed revolution. Ours is armedand I'm not speaking metaphorically, he said. "I am speaking of combat arms: thousands of rifles, thousands of machine-guns, hundreds of tanks, fighter airplanes, etc."
Chavez said that Caracas will be the epicenter of a Bolivarian continentwide revolutionand the governments of the U.S., Colombia, and Costa Rica, which are protecting those who attempted to "coup" him, had better watch out. Revolution is the only route; Brazil's Lula must carry out a revolution, if he hopes to succeed. Chavez announced that he and cocalero leader Evo Morales had agreed to organize a continental meeting of Indians; that a Brazilian peasant leader had agreed to hold a continental meeting of peasants; and similarly, a women's meeting would be held.
Ignacio Ramonet, introduced as the "international intellectual" who defends the Bolivarian Revolution, inaugurated the main event with a speech holding up the Chavez regime as the model anti-neo-liberal government worldwide, and saying that Chavez and Cuba's Fidel Castro are in the sights of the U.S. government, after Iraq.
Menem Threatens To Carve Up His Own Country, Again
Former Argentine President Carlos Menem, once again candidate in the April 27 Presidential elections, has plans to carve up the country. He promises that, if elected, he would lower Federal and provincial expenditures by dividing the country up into three big regions, each of which would have its own Parliament. The existing provincial legislatures, which he argues are the biggest source of budget deficits, would be dissolvedthus hinting that the provinces might also disappear.
Various schemes for "regionalization" have been floated over the past year, but Menem is most identified with this idea. For example, he is heavily promoting a scheme for the development of Argentina's mining sectorby foreigners no doubtin which provinces would receive royalties for mining resources developed. They then wouldn't have to depend on the Federal government for funding, and could move toward becoming self-sufficent or autonomous. Similar plans have been discussed for oil-rich Patagonia.
Another Menem scheme is to destroy Argentina's Presidential system, which is modelled on that of the United States, and create a unicameral Congress by dissolving the Senate. Five representatives from each province would sit in the new Congress, regardless of that province's population density.
Ibero-American News Digest
Brazil Congressman: Eurasian Land-Bridge the Target of War Party in Washington
On April 11, Brazilian Congressman Irapuan Teixeira, of the Party for Rebuilding of National Order (PRONA), headed by Congressman Eneas Carneiro, gave his fellow Deputies a short but devastating briefing on the "perpetual war" strategy behind the Bush Administration's Iraq war.
Teixeira's speech on the floor of the Chamber of Deputies continued what was begun by Dr. Eneas when he addressed the Chamber on March 27. In that speech, Dr. Eneas called upon Brazilian President Lula da Silva to help stop the U.S.-U.K. war in the Middle East, by deploying Brazil's sole feasible weapon in today's circumstances: to break with the International Monetary Fund system, and declare a debt moratorium, an historical act which would force the world to face the reality that the current world financial system is finished (see INDEPTH, EIW #14).
The Bush Administration has become the "captive of a group of neo-fascist ideologues coordinated by Vice President Dick Cheney," Teixeira told his fellow Congressmen. This is no simple war for the control of natural resources, "even it if is undeniable that the United States of America and its few allies, or better, only ally, could benefit from it in the short term," he said. "The offensive against Iraq and the accusations against the regime of Saddam Hussein were merely pretexts to set in motion a Clash of Civilizations, a state of perpetual war, which would begin against the Islamic peoples, and would extend like a trail of gunpowder along the routes of Eurasian integration."
Nor is this war some natural product of capitalism, nor is it designed to provoke an economic recovery, he said. Rather, it is a result of the transformation of the world economy into a "speculative financial casino" over the last three decades, a transformation brought about by the domination of the Anglo-Dutch liberal ideology. This has led to "the systemic crisis which is today sounding its final death-rattle," Teixeria stated, adding that "the primary objective of the imperial impulse" driving the war is to bring about "the destruction of the effort to establish a Eurasian Land-Bridge capable of triggering the urgent process of world economic recovery."
Teixera's speech drew upon the pamphlet published by the Brazilian branch of Lyndon LaRouche's Ibero-American Solidarity Movement (MSIA), titled Imperium Insanum. Teixeira did not mention LaRouche or the pamphlet, but he cited "journalist Lorenzo Carrasco," well-known as EIR's correspondent in Brazil, as a source for the documents demonstrating the war party's longstanding intentions. The Imperum Insanum pamphlet is providing Brazilians with U.S. Presidential candidate Lyndon LaRouche's analysis of the situation. In less than a month, 26,000 copies have been distributed by networks in every corner of Brazil, and the demand for more copies is increasing.
Globalist OAS Meeting Cancelled
The Organization of American States' (OAS) long-planned Foreign Ministers-level Special Conference on Hemispheric Security, scheduled for May 6-8 in Mexico, has been officially postponed until October. In four days of meeting, April 7-10, the preparatory committee failed to reach a consensus on what the conference would conclude.
The OAS conference head been conceived by the utopians as the place where radical changes in the "architecture" of hemispheric security, to conform to the doctrine of limited sovereignty, could be rammed through under the cover of "fighting terrorism." When the Iraq war began, EIR warned, in an article called "Iraq Treatment Set for Ibero-America by Rumsfeld" (see INDEPTH, EIW #12) that "all bets were off" on whether any Ibero-Americans would continue to cooperate with the utopians' schemes to re-write hemispheric security accords. That evaluation has now proven correct in spades.
The Mexican Permanent Mission to the OAS announced the postponement April 11. "Differences, in approach and in substance, on the key definitions in the draft Political Declaration to be adopted by the Conference ... should be viewed as legitimate and worthy of absolute respect," the Mission said, and thus more time is needed before a consensus can be reached.
An Ibero-American diplomat involved in the preparatory meeting reported that the conference was cancelled after the U.S. said Secretary of State Colin Powell would not attend, because of Mexico's refusal to back the Iraq war. A U.S. military source, involved in the preparations for the conference, could not confirm that report, but said that if the U.S. had done this, it indicates that people have finally recognized that the discussions on how to fight terrorism are in "total disarray," and the parties too far apart to reach any agreement. Ibero-American governments are agreed only on one thing, this source reported: that "the U.S. is certainly off-base" in the way it is fighting terrorism, and that addressing security requires addressing poverty and disease, as much as terrorism.
'LaRouche Factor' in Gubernatorial Campaign in Nuevo Leon
Some interests clearly would like to eliminate the LaRouche factor from the race for Governor of Nuevo Leon, Mexico, where Benjamin Castro, well-known as the leader of Lyndon LaRouche's forces in Monterrey, is running for the office on the ticket of the Social Action Party (PAS).
Castro is getting significant television and radio coverage of his campaign, getting LaRouche's ideas out to a broad audience. In November 2002, LaRouche himself made a highly successful visit to Coahuila, the northern state that borders Nuevo Leon. In Coahuila, LaRouche, the U.S. Democratic Party Presidential pre-candidate, was received by the Governor of Coahuila, and held a series of successful meetings and seminars, including with youth.
But the Castro campaign is hitting a raw nerveleading to harassment and slanders in the press. Typical is the campaign against Castro by the media after his campaign appearance April 3, at the Monterrey Technological Institute, known as "the Tec," where he discussed the global economic and strategic crisis, and LaRouche's solutions.
When a student asked why his campaign platform attacked local popular culture dens called "antros;" Castro answered that it is "stupid" to spend four hours in a disco or "rave," when the world requires sublime leaders, such as Joan of Arc, willing to fight to build great projects ("raves" are all-night concert events where designer drugs and violence are frequently reported).
All well and good, with the students. But the media attacked Castro for not "respecting" the counterculture. It was soon apparent, however, that the media's gripe was LaRouche. On April 4, Milenio newspaper provocatively reported that Castro had called the students "stupid"reporting nothing else. Radio Formula's Antonio de Mendieta then called for banning Castro from the elections, because of his "insulting" remarks. Rosario Barahona, well-known as the hired pen of the Monterrey Group of business interests, attacked Castro in El Norte, demanding "respect" for the Tec students, and their "right" to relax in any way they wish.
De Mendieta also attacked LaRouche, whom he described as the founder of a "Jehovah's Witness-like cult." Radio slanders multiplied, one saying Mr. LaRouche headed a cult like the "Davidians." In another radio program, one founder of the PAS Party, a Sr. Cazares, who opposed Castro's nomination said Castro "required psychological treatment" and he wanted him removed as candidate. The slander of the LaRouche movement as a "cult" started with a group of counterculture journalists in the U.S. affiliated with the drug-promoting magazine High Times. Back in the 1980s, they railed against LaRouche, saying, "He wants to take your drugs away!"
As the election nears, harassment and threats have been increasing against Castro. Provocateurs have deployed to attempt to disrupt meetings; one opponent of LaRouche within the PAS Party itself attempted to beat him up (unsuccessfully); and false reports that Castro is about to announce his resignation have appeared in the press.
Lyndon LaRouche Comments on Cuba
See this week's LATEST FROM LAROUCHE for the transcript of Lyndon LaRouche's April 12 webcast address and dialogue with scores of LaRouche Youth Movement organizers gathered in Mexico City, and in Lima, Peru.
"Collateral damage" from the Iraq war has hit the Caribbean. On April 11, the Castro regime executed three hijackers, and gave four others life sentences, after their April 2 attempt to hijack a domestic ferry to Florida, failed. Brought back to Havana, the leaders of the hijacking were charged with "very grave acts of terrorism," given summary trials and convicted on April 8, and executed by firing squad three days later. That drastic measure followed upon the round-up of 75-80 Cuban dissidents the week that President Bush launched the Iraq war. Those arrested have since been given summary trials, and sentenced to jail terms ranging from six to 28 years, on charges of collaborating with a foreign power against the Cuban government.
U.S. officials have made it clear Cuba is on the Chickenhawk hit list, and the state of mind in the Cuban government is one of preparing for war.
On April 7, James Casonwho heads the U.S. Interest Section in Cuba (since there are no diplomatic relations between Cuba and the U.S.) and who has used his post to host dissident meetings in his official residence, handing out radio equipment to dissidents, etc.gave a provocative speech at the University of Miami, on the "moral imperative" of the United States to bring about "a rapid and peaceful transition toward democracy" in Cuba. Adding a more ominous tone, Cason assert that the U.S. has "strategic interests" in Cuba, and "the continuous disintegration of the Cuban society generates instability in the region and creates the threat of massive migration into the United States."
U.S. Ambassador to the Dominican Republic Hans Hertell, meanwhile, has declared that the removal of Saddam Hussein could serve as a "good example ... for regime change in Cuba," Spain's El Pais daily reported April 14. The war which the U.S. is waging against Iraq, Hertell said, is the "beginning of a 'liberating crusade' in the world, including Cubawhose purpose is to put into practice a democratic system."
Jorge Mas Santos, head of the Miami exile millionaires gang known as the Cuban-American National Foundation, called April 11 for "regime change" in Cuba, and demanded Washington "indict" the Castro brothers, Fidel and Raul. Democratic Senator Joe "Hitler" Lieberman, who is vying with George W. Bush for the campaign money of the Miami Cubans, said the executions of the hijackers prove we cannot go easy on Castro. "We must never waver and never yield until the people of Cuba taste liberty."
Meanwhile, Fidel Castro is giving speeches warning that the United States is throwing "provocations" at the regime, to prepare the way for a military attack. One such speech was delivered on national television on the night of April 11; if Cuba is occupied, "the resistance will last 100 years," Castro said.
Presidents of Brazil and Peru Agree On Cross-Continental Projects
The implementation of bilateral projects necessary to the physical integration of the South American continent, topped the agenda of the April 11 summit of Peru's President Alejandro Toledo and Brazil's Lula da Silva. The final communiqué issued after their meeting emphasizes that the two Presidents agree on the "vital importance" of implementing the continent-wide "Regional Integration Initiative of South America" (IIRSA), adopted at the first South American Summit in Brasilia in September 2000.
Particular attention will be paid to water transportation: completing the north and central branches of the cross-Amazon transportation axis, the Bolivia-Brazil-Peru axis, and the inter-oceanic axis, outlined in IIRSA. "The objective is to make the flow of commerce between the Pacific and the Atlantic a reality, generating opportunities for wealth and sustainable development for the populations along the cited axis and their wider areas of influence," the communiqué states.
President Toledo told Brazil's Valor magazine (April 14 issue) that he considers reaching a "strategic alliance" with Brazil to be one of the three most important goals of his Administration, and he brought ten Cabinet ministers with him for the meeting.
Equally interesting is the decision that the Ministers of Defense of both countries should meet, regarding Peru's getting access to intelligence from Brazil's newly activated Amazon-wide radar surveillance system, SIVAM, crucial for going after the drug trade.
Chavez Regime Organizes Another World Jacobin Meet
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez held a "World Meeting in Solidarity with the Bolivarian Revolution," as part of four days of celebrations organized for the first anniversary of the April 11-13 coup and counter-coup a year ago. He used the occasion to set up a "Bolivarian Forum of the Americas," to spread continental revolution. Attending were Le Monde Diplomatique's Ignacio Ramonet, failed French Socialist Party candidate Jean-Pierre Chevenement, the notorious former First Lady of France, Danielle Mitterrand, and old faces of the terrorist core of Ibero-America's Sao Paulo Forum: Bolivia's Evo Morales, Shafik Handal of El Salvador's FMLN, Gloria Marin of the FARC, Danny Ortega of Nicaragua's Sandinistas, Marta Hanecker of Cuba, among others.
In one of several speeches during these days, Chavez said he had made the mistake of sheathing his sword once, and he would never do that again. In 1973, Chilean President Salvador Allende's mistake was to try for an unarmed revolution. Ours is armedand I'm not speaking metaphorically, he said. "I am speaking of combat arms: thousands of rifles, thousands of machine-guns, hundreds of tanks, fighter airplanes, etc."
Chavez said that Caracas will be the epicenter of a Bolivarian continentwide revolutionand the governments of the U.S., Colombia, and Costa Rica, which are protecting those who attempted to "coup" him, had better watch out. Revolution is the only route; Brazil's Lula must carry out a revolution, if he hopes to succeed. Chavez announced that he and cocalero leader Evo Morales had agreed to organize a continental meeting of Indians; that a Brazilian peasant leader had agreed to hold a continental meeting of peasants; and similarly, a women's meeting would be held.
Ignacio Ramonet, introduced as the "international intellectual" who defends the Bolivarian Revolution, inaugurated the main event with a speech holding up the Chavez regime as the model anti-neo-liberal government worldwide, and saying that Chavez and Cuba's Fidel Castro are in the sights of the U.S. government, after Iraq.
Menem Threatens To Carve Up His Own Country, Again
Former Argentine President Carlos Menem, once again candidate in the April 27 Presidential elections, has plans to carve up the country. He promises that, if elected, he would lower Federal and provincial expenditures by dividing the country up into three big regions, each of which would have its own Parliament. The existing provincial legislatures, which he argues are the biggest source of budget deficits, would be dissolvedthus hinting that the provinces might also disappear.
Various schemes for "regionalization" have been floated over the past year, but Menem is most identified with this idea. For example, he is heavily promoting a scheme for the development of Argentina's mining sectorby foreigners no doubtin which provinces would receive royalties for mining resources developed. They then wouldn't have to depend on the Federal government for funding, and could move toward becoming self-sufficent or autonomous. Similar plans have been discussed for oil-rich Patagonia.
Another Menem scheme is to destroy Argentina's Presidential system, which is modelled on that of the United States, and create a unicameral Congress by dissolving the Senate. Five representatives from each province would sit in the new Congress, regardless of that province's population density.
Western European News Digest
Schroeder Needs, Not Risky Strategy for Austerity, But Reasonable Economic Policy
Whereas German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder is backed by an overwhelming majority of Germans on the issue of opposition to the Iraq war, he has a rating of only 33% or less on his economic-social policies. Unrest among labor unions and his own Social Democratic Party has increased, over recent weeks, in spite of his opposition to the war. Now pressure inside the party has grown so much, that Schroeder feels obliged to hold a special SPD convention on June 1, and labor unions have announced a wave of protests for the month of May. Since Schroeder cannot be assured that his thin (four-seat) majority in the Bundestag will hold on crucial issues of economic and social austerity, he is warning the party that either they back his policy, or he quits (although he used more moderate language).
This is highly dangerous and unnecessary: If Schroeder agreed with the trade unions on the concept of conjunctural incentives for job creation and combined that with a Lyndon LaRouche-inspired approach on long-term loans for projects, he would avoid such a conflict. He should scrap the Maastricht Treaty system that undergirds European Union fiscal policy, replace Finance Minister Hans Eichel, and announce great infrastructure projects. For example, there is even considerable union support for magnetic levitation rail projects, upon which he could base a policy change.
No Collaboration with Bush Administration While Hawks Are ThereFrench Military Expert
There can be no collaboration with the Bush Administration so long as the hawks are there, said a French military expert to an EIR correspondent last week. Instead of trying to be diplomatic with the Anglo-Americans, the peace camp countries should instead declare "that there are unbridgeable differences, at this point, between their camp and that of the Anglo-American coalition." The peace camp needs to retake the initiative internationally by attempting to block the Anglo-Americans in their march towards imperial power, stated this source. It is no time for diplomatic blathering, but for launching initiatives that will again "jam" the Anglo-Americans' progression.
According to this source, the tripwire for the Russians and the Putin entourage will be Iran. The Russians were not particularly attached to Saddam, but have often stated that they will not tolerate one inch of Iran being touched, because they are "our allies."
Wolfowitz: France Will Have To Pay for Opposing the War
Le Figaro and other French papers last week prominently reported on U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz's declaration of war against France. "The Americans are not yet ready to pardon Jacques Chirac," says Le Figaro, noting that Wolfowitz, still furious about Paris' veto and even more so "about Paris' refusal to authorize, in the weeks preceding the war, the transfer to Turkey of anti-air raid protection devices," declared: "The behavior of the French was very injurious to NATO, and I think that France will have to assume the consequences. If we look only at the state of our military relations with France, things are reasonably healthy. It is with the French political figures that we have a problem."
"The vengeance will be political," concluded Le Figaro, noting that "as Wolfowitz let it be known, Americans will make it hard for France within the institutions of the Atlantic Alliance."
While much of the French press last week followed the Goebbels line coming out of the Bush Administration about the "heroic victory" of the Anglo-Americans in Iraq, some stuck to their guns, and are continuing their opposition to the Chickenhawks. Among them, Jean Claude Maurice, editor-in-chief of the Journal de Dimanche, a paper owned by the powerful Lagardere group in France (weapons, media, editors). "No, France is not isolated," stated Maurice in his editorial. "Only more attacked because it is a member of the Security Council and leader of the Fronde. Less audible for a certain time, like all those who prefer peace when weapons triumph. It is now designated by the U.S. as the 'ally one loves to hate the most,' ....
"What to do then? Tremble with fear? ... Beg to get the crumbs of the reconstruction? Many are inviting us to do so, as if our past position had been nothing but a posture. That would mean renouncing all that Francesupported until now by the majority of the world opinionhas defended: the primacy of right over might, the refusal of humiliation, the equal dignity of peoples, and especially a new organization of the worldcollective, multilateralrefusing to ride on the bandwagon of financiers who mix up their profits with the freedom of a people and the smell of petroleum."
Great Britain Rocked by One of Greatest Scandals of Postwar Period
Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir John Stevens, the most senior police official in Great Britain, has released the findings of a report documenting that a special branch of British Army intelligence coordinated the murders of Roman Catholics in Northern Ireland. Stevens had begun his investigation back in 1989, but the report is being released only now, after its release had twice been postponed during 2002.
The Stevens investigation has centered on British Army Intelligence's Force Research Unit (FRU), for colluding with "Protestant loyalist" paramilitary groups to kill Catholics. What makes this all so explosive, is that the head of the FRU at the time when these murders were being committed, in 1989-90, was Gordon Kerr. Until February 2003, Kerr was the British military attaché in Beijing, one of the highest military posts for a British military officer.
Then, in February, Stevens confirmed that he was preparing papers for the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) relating to a prosecution of Kerr. At that point, Kerr, now an Army Brigadier, was moved to Kuwait, and is currently serving in Iraq (!).
This may or may not blow back against current British Prime Minister Tony Blair, because of Blair's Iraq war policy. But certainly, one person who could quickly become implicated, is Margaret Thatcher, who was Prime Minister at the time when the murders were taking place. A senior British Intelligence-linked source told EIR that Kerr and his FRU could never have done such atrocities on their own, but would have had to have been acting, "on orders from the highest level," that is, from Thatcher's office. Whether the Stevens report will carry matters that far, remains to be seen.
Another explosive element in the story is that the British press is focussing on the fact that Kerr's chief FRU operative for coordinating the Ulster Defence Association (UDA), to carry out at least 30 murders, was a certain Brian Nelson. Nelson, under Kerr's direction, maneuvered himself to become the UDA's intelligence chief. In January 1990, the Stevens team identified Nelson as a key suspect, and planned to arrest him and others, in a dawn raid. The officers returned to their secure investigation headquarters hours before the planned arrests, to find a fire raging in their offices, with fire alarms, telephones, and heat-sensitive intruder alarms not working, and with many of their files destroyed! This was an obvious case of arson.
The punch-line is that Brian Nelson conveniently died last week, supposedly of a brain hemorrhage.
The investigation was launched in 1989, following the murder of top Catholic lawyer Pat Finucane. Finucane's family has always insisted that the security forces were involved in his murder, and are now dismissing the Stevens report as inadequate. His widow, Geraldine, is demanding a full judicial inquiry, as the only way to deal with the issue.
British Workers Will Have To Work Five Years Longer or Face Pension Cuts
As the Times of London reported April 18, "Millions of employees will be forced to work until they are 70, or face vastly reduced company pension payouts, under new proposals. The plans, to be published by the government this summer, will impose a mandatory retirement age on Britain's workers for the first time."
The move "is likely to meet fierce opposition from workers and unions," states the Times. The government plans to tackle the "growing pension-funding crisis" in Britain will be unveiled in a consultation paper from the Department of Trade and Industry.
The background of this is the devastation of corporate pension schemes, following the three-year-long stock market crash. The Times quoted British pensions expert Tom McPhail: "These proposals will come as a shock to a lot of people who will see their pension substantially reduced if they want to retire at what they regard as the traditional pension age. Many people will be very upset by this, and will be forced to re-examine their expectations for retirement."
Is Blair Aiming To Become European 'Super President,' with Bush Backing?
The British tabloid The Mirror reported April 18 that at the EU summit meeting in Athens, British Prime Minister Tony Blair raised the idea of ending the rotating EU Presidency, and replacing it with the election of a "Super President." According to The Mirror, President George Bush wants Blair to become Europe's first "Super President." The reason, stated The Mirror, is that Bush "believes the PM can take on the role and help him demolish the 'Old Europe' alliance that tried to block the war against Iraq."
The Mirror reported that the idea of a single EU President created a row at the Athens summit, where a treaty was signed to admit 10 new member states to the Maastricht system.
Hungary Votes for European Union Membership
The Hungarian National Election Office reported that 83.8% of ballots cast in an April 12 vote favored Hungary's membership in the European Union (EU). Total turnout was only 45.6% of eligible voters, but officials said that the result was valid because more than 2 million Hungarians had voted yes.
Russia and Central Asia News Digest
Russia's Glazyev: To Stop War, Create New Monetary System
Economist and political leader Sergei Glazyev's initiative is potentially of decisive importance for the Russian domestic political scene, as well as for shaping Russia's international policy in the wake of the Iraq war. See this week's INDEPTH.
Putin Likens U.S. Policy to Che Guevara's
Answering reporters' questions following the April 11-12 Russia-Germany-France summit in St. Petersburg, Russian President Vladimir Putin said: "On the T-shirt of your colleague who stands opposite me there is the portrait of Che Guevara. See how beautiful it is, this is the brightest specimen of the theory of export of the socialist revolution.
"We cannot engage in exporting a capitalist, democratic revolution. If we only permit ourselves to do it, the world will have embarked on a very perilous, slippery road of unending sequences of military conflicts. We and you have no right to allow such a development of events. Saying 'we and you,' I have in mind ... the broadest circles of international public, including representatives of the so-called anti-Iraqi alliance.... And the sooner we take the road proposed by international law, the better. And the longer we postpone solving the issue within the UN framework, the more it will be reminiscent of a colonial situation...."
France, Germany, Russia Urge Return to International Law
The tripartite summit of President Jacques Chirac, President Vladimir Putin, and Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder in St. Petersburg continued April 12 with their participation in an international conference on "Peace, Security and International Law." Addressing the gathering, all three concurred on the need for a central role of the United Nations in Iraq; that the use of force in future conflicts must be avoided; that adjustments have to be made in the United Nations' structure to strengthen the rule of international law.
Putin said that "any modernization of UN mechanisms should be carried out not only within the UN framework, but also with the use of procedures envisaged in international law, which have been recognized by the United Nations."
Schroeder added that in respect to Iraq, "It is urgent to make sure that this will become a victory for the people of Iraq and the neighboring peoples of the region." He also said that "as war is still going on, it is premature to discuss the color of any helmets" (referring to a UN force such as the blue helmets).
Chirac called for a future global order that made the use of force obsolete. "Despite the regrettable return to war as a means of settling conflicts in the 21st century, which we are presently witnessing, we hope to establish an order where nations will make law prevail over force, based on the principle of collective responsibility and solidarity." He added that giving the UN the central role in postwar Iraq, was the "best guarantor that the people of Iraq will become masters of their own destiny."
Putin Welcomes Law Degree for Gerhard Schroeder
Russia's President thanked St. Petersburg University for awarding an honorary law degree to Germany's Chancellor, even though it "was unexpected for me. But it is timely and correct in the context of relations between Russia and Germany, as well as Russia and Europe as a whole." Putin continued that both French President Chirac and Schroeder "have a deep feeling of the links between cultures and times. They advocate stronger ties between Russia and Europe. Today's event is a very useful brick in the foundation of relations between Russia and the united Europe."
Putin Sees Long-Term Perspective for Tripartite Relations
German media on April 14 played up Russian President Putin's emphasis that the consultations among France, Germany, and Russia are based on a long-term perspective, and not merely reactions to the Iraq war. Speaking at a press conference in St. Petersburg on April 12, the Russian President continued his remarks, in response to critics, that the cooperation between the three states was proceeding on a broad base, with respect to stability and peace in Europe and globally.
Also, the project to modernize the United Nations structure, which Putin said he discussed with Schroeder and Chirac the day before, is part of that long-term cooperation perspective, he said. Furthermore, Putin called on the international media to take note of the fact that talks among France, Germany, and Russia have been going on for some time, and that this St. Petersburg event was already the third one based on the "St. Petersburg Dialogue" initiative (begun two years ago) between the Germans and Russians, which he said was open for other states to join.
Russians Respond to Demand for Iraqi Debt Write-Off
Interfax on April 13 reported that a Russian government source's comment on the U.S. proposal that countries should write off Iraq's debt incurred under Saddam Hussein, suggested, "If you follow the logic of U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, who suggested that Russia, France, and Germany forgive Iraq's debts because they were taken in by Saddam Hussein's regime, it would be more logical to begin by forgiving Russia the debts of the former U.S.S.R.."
State Duma Speaker Gennady Seleznyov categorically disagreed with the debt write-off idea, responding, "I was surprised by this statement by a top official from the U.S. Defense Department. Iraq is not the 51st state of America, and, therefore, I am convinced that all debt issues will be resolved only with the lawful government of Iraq," he told reporters April 11. Seleznyov believes "the U.S. should pay Russia some $2 billion for unrealized contracts that were interrupted by the war."
Indonesian President's Russia Trip Takes on New Importance
Indonesian Foreign Minister Hassan Wirayuda said April 13 that President Megawati Sukarnoputri's forthcoming visit to Moscow, to forge bilateral ties between her country and Russia, is an attempt to counterbalance the dominating role of the United States. The two leaders will discuss Iraq, especially the role of nations in reconstruction under UN auspices. Hassan said we see no power that can match the United States. We need to stress multilateralism to correct this situation. Hassan said the opposition of Russia, France, and Germany to the Iraq war could signal the beginning moves to counter the power of the U.S., with Russia taking the lead. He said we realized the importance of looking to Russia even before the Iraq crisis.
In her talks with President Putin April 20-24, it is likely that Megawati will offer possible oil and gas business in Indonesia, an area currently dominated by U.S. and British firms. Foreign Ministry officials have indicated that seven or eight Memorandums of Understanding are to be signed by the two Presidents covering collaboration in arms and oil. (The U.S. has imposed an embargo on weapons sales to Indonesia since the 1999 East Timor fiasco.)
Mideast News Digest
Straussians Implement 'End of History' in Iraq, With Destruction of 5,000 Years of Civilization
"In a sense, it is a total war against the past," said Prof. John Russell of the Massachusetts College of Art. Because Mesopotamia, the region between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers south of the mountains of Asia Minor, gave rise to the world's first cities, its first written language, and some of its earliest art and architecture, there are tens of thousands of artifacts and archeological sites, now threatened, or already destroyed. Babylon, located about two hours south of today's Baghdad, gave the world the first examples of writing, the first wheel, the first boats, according to Moyad Said, director of Baghdad's Iraqi Museum, now in ruins. "What seems to be happening in Iraq, is unprecedented in any Middle Eastern country in modern times," Russell said. "Namely, there is the wholesale looting of famous and undiscovered archeological sites."
As the Washington Post reported April 14, U.S. scholars repeatedly urged the Defense Department to protect Iraq's priceless archaeological heritage, and warned specifically that the National Museum of Antiquities was the single most important such site in Iraq. On April 13, UNESCO, the UN cultural agency, urged the U.S. and U.K. to take immediate steps to protect what remains of Iraq's antiquities (see article in INDEPTH). Nonetheless, the looterswithin plain sight of U.S. troops"looted or destroyed 170,000 items of antiquity ... worth billions of dollars," said Nabhal Amin, deputy director of the National Museum of Antiquities in Baghdad.
After 12 years of sanctions, which left national treasures unguarded, unprotected, and unmaintained, due to lack of funds and personnel; and porous borders, through which organized looting operations succeeded in denuding Iraq of uncounted numbers of precious national artifacts; and now, the unleashing of Jacobin hordes to finish the job, there is a veritable cultural holocaust. While in part the looting was made possible by the inadequate troop deployment into the country, the deeper cause is that the Straussian Chickenhawks running the war are determined to obliterate the history and culture of the Arab world.
"Our heritage is finished," said Amin, an Iraqi civilian. "Why did they do this? Why? Why?" she demanded to know. "If there were five American soldiers at the door, everything would have been fine. They're supposed to be here to protect us." In fact, it has been widely reported that a whole company of U.S. Marines, along with at least a half-dozen amphibious assault vehicles, had been assigned to guard the Oil Ministry, while many others, including Trade, Information, Planning, Health, and Education remained unprotectedalong with museums and other culturally significant sites.
Mass Demonstrations Against Occupation in Baghdad on Friday, and a LaRouche Factor
On April 18, in Baghdad, following Friday prayers, hundreds of thousands of observant Muslims, from Shi'ites and Sunnis, united in street demonstrations against the occupation of their nation by the U.S. and Britain.
The major event in Baghdad on April 18 was the Friday Prayer sermon given by Sheikh Ahmed Al-Kubaisi in Imam Abu Hanifa Mosque, which witnessed one of the last battles in Baghdad. The whole prayer and demonstration were broadcast live on Al-Arabiya satellite TV. International English-language media misinterpreted and misquoted him.
Contrary to the English-language reports, Al-Kubaisi did not call for an Islamic state. He called for establishing some sort of "a Committee of Wise Men," headed by representatives of the different Muslim sects in the country. This committee would monitor the activities of whichever civil administration were established in the country, to make sure that all decisions are being made in the interest of the nation and the people of Iraq. If they find any irregularities or mischief, they would declare publicly to the population that this administration is not legitimate. He called for civilian disobedience, on the model of Mahatma Gandhi.
The demonstrations after the prayer were organized the day before. There were probably hundreds of thousands of Iraqis on the streets. Al-Kubaisi was addressing Sunni Muslims in Al-Adhamiya. On the other side of the river, Shi'ites were attending another Friday Prayer in Al-Kadhimiya, at the Shrine of Imam Jaafar Assadiq. They, too, went out to demonstrate against the occupation. They crossed the bridge and joined their Sunni compatriots in a display of national, non-sectarian unity.
Al-Kubaisi went extensively into what he meant by the "America we know." He stressed that the America he knew was "the America of freedom and scientific progress, not the one we see today." He also described in fascinating detail how President Eisenhower put an end to the British-Israeli-French attack on Egypt in the Suez War in 1956. [As reported below, Al-Kubaisi's knowledge of the U.S.A. also includes the fact that he appears to be well aware of Lyndon LaRouche's activity in the United States.]
The Iraqis are displaying an incredible degree of political consciousness, organizing themselves outside the framework of the quislings, the U.S.-U.K.-imposed Iraqi National Congress (INC) of bank embezzler Ahmed Al-Chalabi. Al-Chalabi, whom Iraqis are regarding with disgust, is organizing his own private army and is illegally occupying governmental and semi-governmental buildings in Baghdad as headquarters for his mafia group. This might backfire in his face, as it is becoming obvious that the population in Baghdad may easily organize mass protests to force him out.
Next week, by Tuesday or Wednesday, millions of Iraqi Shi'ites are expected to march on Karbala for the religious ceremony of the Fortieth Day after the Anniversary of the Martyrdom of Imam Hussein, the grandson of Prophet Mohammed. This celebration was prohibited for 25 years under Saddam's regime. This event is being organized completely independently of the U.S. forces or the INC. It will be dominated by the Iran-backed Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) and the Islamic Scientific Seminary in Najaf, which have openly expressed their unwillingness to accept a puppet regime and a U.S. military presence in Iraq. This brings the situation further out of the "the-day-after" plans prepared by the Chickenhawks and their Iraqi quislings.
It should be noted that on April 17, the London Guardian reported that the two brothers of Ahmed Chalabi are also convicted crooks. Jawad and Hazem Chalabi were both convicted in 2000 in a Swiss court for fraud related to the Swiss side of the Petra Banking scandal, for which Ahmed himself was convicted for fraud by a Jordanian court. The Swiss court sentenced the two brothers to six-month suspended sentences for fraud related to several Swiss companies they controlled, including Mebco Bank, Associated Software, Middle East and Trading Investment Co., and Socofi.
LaRouche Cited by Baghdad Imam Al-Kubaisi
In a speech he delivered in November 2002 at the Zayed University in Abu Dhabi, renowned Iraqi Islamic scholar Ahmed Al-Kubaisi (here spelled Al-Qubaisi), referred to writings by Lyndon LaRouche in the context of his review of the U.S. plans for war against Iraq and the region. dating back to 1991. Although Al-Kubaisi's remarks, as quoted, clearly involve a misrepresentation of LaRouche's views regarding "the Jews" (perhaps due to secondary sources employed), Al-Kubaisi's intervention on behalf of LaRouche is of extreme importance, as Al-Kubaisi is emerging as a national leader.
The quotes from Al-Kubaisi's speech as reported in Gulf News, are as follows (the full text is not yet available):
Gulf News put the quotes in the following context: "Al Qubaisi emphasized that the planned attack on Iraq is part of an elaborate strategy which surfaced long before the 'war on terrorism.' "
Gulf News continues: "The 1980s U.S. Presidential candidate, Lyndon H. LaRouche, who was framed and jailed, wrote a book which puts these events into context. LaRouche said that Jews pulled the strings and brought about the Soviet Union, and they plotted its demise in 1991.
"Following that, LaRouche went on, America would become the world's superpower. To continue being the world's superpower, America needs to control the Middle East, especially Iraq. All this came in the book by LaRouche," said Al Qubaisi.
The report of Gulf News is available at the link: (http://www.gulf-news.com/Articles/news.asp?ArticleID=69449)
Syria Introduces UNSC Resolution for WMD-Free Zone in Mideast
Against a backdrop of a concerted campaign by the Bush warhawks, of threats and unsubstantiated allegations that Syria is hiding WMD and people for Iraq, Syria presented a resolution on April 16, to the UN Security Council for turning the Middle East into a Weapons of Mass Destruction Free Zone. Speaking to reporters, on April 15, Syria's Deputy Ambassador to the UN, Fayssal Mekdad, said, "These ideas which we shall present to the Council tomorrow will show that we are sincere in our expressions of rejecting weapons of mass destruction and that the only party that has them is Israel." Asked whether Syria will become a party to the conventions of biological and chemical weapons, he said, "Absolutely, provided that Israel takes them as well."
The resolution had the support of the 22-member Group of Arab nations at the UN, many of which also told the U.S. to cease its attacks on Syria.
In Cairo, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher expressed support for the resolution, saying, "Egypt supports this position because it matches its long-held stand and President Hosni Mubarak's initiative to make the region free of weapons of mass destruction."
Middle East leaders from the just-concluded emergency meeting in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) called on the U.S. to stop its threats against Syria. Qatar Foreign Minister Hamad bin Jasim Thani said, "We think the threat to Syria should stop. We don't think Syria wants a war or to escalate any situation.... We reject any infringement of Syria's security."
Also addressing Washington's anti-Syria posture, Arab League spokesman Hisham Youssef said, "I believe this is like throwing oil on a fire or salt in a wound ... and it makes the situation even more tense and precarious. Israel being involved is going to inflame the whole region. We have suffered enough."
Israeli Peace Activist Uri Avnery Slams Imperial Plans of 'Jewish Neo-Conservatives'
Uri Avnery, the visionary Israeli peace activist, penned a devastating attack on the neo-conservatives' open conspiracy that is behind the Iraq war and the policy of perpetual war. He calls his article, "The Night After."
It begins: "After the end of hostilities in Iraq, the world will be faced with two decisive facts: First the immense superiority of American arms.... Second, the small group that initiated this war, an alliance of Christian fundamentalists and Jewish neo-conservatives, has won big, and from now on will control Washington almost without limits.
"The combination of these two facts constitute a danger to the world, and especially to the Middle East, the Arab peoples and the future of Israel. Because this alliance is the enemy of peaceful solutions, the enemy of the Arab governments, the enemy of the Palestinian people and especially the enemy of the Israeli peace camp.
"It does not dream only about an American empire, in the style of the Roman one, but also an Israeli mini-empire, under the control of the extreme right and the settlers. It wants to change the regimes of all Arab countries. It will cause permanent chaos in the region, the consequences of which it is impossible to foresee."
He traces their conspiracy from the attacks on Sept. 11, when William Kristol published his infamous Open Letter to President Bush calling for a crusade not just against Osama bin Laden but against Iraq, Syria, and Saudi Arabia, which Avnery describes as "the beginning of the Iraq war."
UNHRC Affirms Palestinian Right To Resist; Tells Israelis To Cease Repression
In a resolution passed with only one opposition votefrom the United Stateswithin the UN Commission on Human Rights, the Commission ordered Israel "to cease repressive measures," and reaffirmed the right of Palestinians to resist the occupation of their lands. On April 15, a resolution on human rights in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights, was adopted by the UNHC in a roll call vote of 31-1, with 21 abstentions. The U.S. was the sole opposing vote. The resolution called for Israel "to cease repressive measures in the occupied Syrian Golan ... and withdraw from Palestinian territories occupied since 1967." It also called on Israel to allow displaced persons to "return to their homes and recover their properties...." These were all issues being discussed by Israelis and Palestinians during the negotiations for the "peace of the brave," before the late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated by a rightwing Jewish extremist in 1995.
Another resolution on the occupied Palestinian lands, was adopted by a roll call vote of 33-5, with 15 abstentions. This reaffirmed the right of the Palestinian people to resist the Israeli occupation, and condemned the violations by the Israeli occupation authorities of human rights in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem, and also condemned the practice of "liquidation" or "extrajudicial executions" carried out by the Israeli Army.
Iraq's Neighbors Tell U.S./British To End Occupation
A meeting of all the countries neighboring Iraq, held in Saudi Arabia, demanded that the U.S./British occupation be ended. They also called for the establishment of an Iraqi government before United Nations sanctions are lifted, which is counter to U.S. wishes, but in line with statements by Russia and other United Nations Security Council members.
Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal said, "Now Iraq is under an occupying power, and any request for lifting sanctions must come when there is a legitimate government which represents the people ... and which can comply with its duties towards lifting sanctions." He went on to say, "The ministers affirmed that the Iraqi people should administer and govern their own country by themselves, and any exploitation of their natural resources should be in conformity with the will of the legitimate Iraqi government and its people."
Among those in attendance where Foreign Ministers from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria, Turkey, Iran, Jordan, and Bahrain. They came out in full support of Syria as well, stating: "We absolutely refuse the recent threat against Syria which can only increase the likelihood of a new circle of war and hatred, especially in light of the continuing deterioration of the Palestinian situation. We call on the United States to use dialogue with Syria and to activate the Middle East peace."
The joint statement also called for the UN to play the central role. "The UN should have a central role not only in humanitarian and economic issues but also in building postwar Iraq. In order for U.S. forces to withdraw as soon as possible, we call on the occupying authority to set up a transitional government quickly and make all efforts to set up a broad-based constitutional Iraqi government."
Asia News Digest
Philippines Lured into 'Empire's' Promise of Iraq Contracts
The entire Philippines government is being restructured with the intention of cashing in on the spoils of war. According to an April 17 story in the Philippines Inquirer, Roberto Romulo, who was Foreign Minister under Fidel Ramos and is known for his close ties to Washington, was named chair of the "Public-Private Sector Task Force" that will coordinate the Philippines' export of cheap labor to serve under Cheney's Halliburton et al. in the "reconstruction" of postwar Iraq. Romulo will have Cabinet rank, will have four other Cabinet secretaries (including Foreign Affairs Secretary Blas Ople), three ambassadors, and one special envoy among the members of his task force.
In Executive Order No. 194 dated April 14, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo also appointed as task force members the president of the Philippine Constructors Association and "other private-sector representatives" still to be named.
The government set up a second "humanitarian" task force, co-chaired by Ople and Rumsfeld's buddy, Defense Secretary Angelo Reyes, to send Filipino "peacekeepers and social workers" to Iraq. All for the glory of Empire....
Indonesian Infant Mortality Rate Skyrockets Amid Economic Crisis
The Indonesian government announced a huge rise in the infant mortality rate since the 1997 speculative assault by international financial traders on the Asian economies. Infant mortality rose from 47 babies per 1,000 births in 1997 to 51 babies in 2001. For Indonesia, the fourth largest population in the world, this means more than 140,000 babies aged less than one week dying per year, or 2,690 per week.
The government also said that the post-natal maternal mortality rate had increased from 325 mothers per 100,000 births in 1995 to 396 mothers in 2001that is, over 300 mothers die post-partum every week. Some experts even said the maternal mortality rate could be as high as 594 per 100,000 births.
The economic crisis has increased the number of people without access to health services, leading inevitably to increase in these mortality rates. Other studies have shown that the Indonesian population has taken a 35% collapse in real income since the 1997 attack.
The infant mortality figures are the second worst in Southeast Asia, after Myanmar.
Indonesia Calls for UN General Assembly Meeting; Megawati Goes to Russia
Indonesia has made a request through the Non-Aligned Movement to convene a UN General Assembly meeting as soon as possible to discuss postwar Iraq, reported Foreign Minister Hassan Wirayuda on April 13. Earlier, Jakarta had requested through the Non-Aligned Movement to convene an emergency Security Council meeting at the start of the war. Wirayuda said that any Indonesian role in the reconstruction in Iraq, now depends on UN participation. He also said UN weapons inspectors should be sent to verify the accusation that Iraq had WMDs.
For other important diplomatic initiatives by Indonesia, see this week's RUSSIA DIGEST for a report on President Megawati Sukarnoputri's forthcoming visit to Moscow.
'Trans-Regional EU-ASEAN Trade Initiatives' Planned
At a meeting in Laos week before last, ASEAN economic ministers and European Union Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy agreed to establish a trade pact to boost trade between the two regions, reported the Jakarta Post on April 14. The Laos meeting accepted the EU's proposal to establish the Trans Regional EU-ASEAN Trade Initiatives (TREATI). Officials from the EU and ASEAN countries would meet again in August in Singapore to discuss the specifics, and the trade pact would be officially signed before the end of 2003.
In 2001, the EU was ASEAN's third largest export market, after the United States and Japan. The EU's exports to ASEAN in 2001 totalled 42.2 billion euros ($45.8 billion), while imports from ASEAN reached 65.7 billion euros ($71.3 billion). ASEAN is also looking to free-trade deals with China, India, and Japan.
Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri takes over as chairwoman of ASEAN in October at a summit in Bali.
New regional agreements and arrangements of this sort are expected to be increasing, following the decision by the U.S. and Britain to unilaterally go to war against Iraq outside the consensus of the United Nations.
'Children of Satan' Pamphlet Reviewed in Manila Press
LaRouche ally in the Philippines, journalist Herman Tiu Laurel, used his daily column of April 16 in the Philippines Daily Tribune to outline the text of the latest LaRouche 2004 pamphlet, "Children of Satan, The 'Ignoble Liars' Behind Bush's No-Exit War," and to once again review the "Clean Break" Middle East policy, written by Satan's Chickenhawks. Laurel also highlighted the continuing large-scale anti-war demonstrations in the U.S. and elsewhere.
Laurel added a warning to President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and Foreign Secretary Blas Ople, who were quick to ally with the Iraq war, not to count too soon on their cut of any spoils from George W. Bush's imperial war, in the form of bagging 100,000 reconstruction jobs for Filipinos in Iraq.
China's Prime Minister: 'Rapid Response Mechanism' Top Priority for Public Health
On April 13, addressing the SARS epidemic, China's new Prime Minister Wen Jiabao said that the "overall situation remains grave." The next day, the Prime Minister announced, at a meeting of the State CouncilChina's cabinetin Beijing, that establishing a national "Rapid Response Mechanism" for public health emergencies is a top priority for China.
According to Xinhua news service, the State Council announced that these steps have to be taken immediately, and this is "vital to safeguarding public health and the lives of the people." It was also announced April 14 that the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology and the Ministry of Health have launched a joint emergency research program on SARS. The program will spend 10 million yuan (US$1.2 million), to look into causes of SARS, and effective prevention and treatment measures. (The U.S. and Canada have both announced that their scientists have completed genetic mapping of the coronavirus responsible for SARS.)
In addition, a quarantine system has been established on China's national and international transport system including air and rail, the Ministry of Health announced on April 14. SARS has now spread to most areas of China, including Fujian, Shanxi, Sichuan, and Inner Mongolia provinces. China has reported 1,435 cases, of whom 1,094 have recovered and 64 have died.
Officials of the World Health Organization (WHO) also visited the military hospitals in Beijing, to expand their inspections in China.
See last week's EIW for the INDEPTH profile on the SARS epidemic. EIW's lead article "Infrastructure Is Front Line Against SARS" reports, "Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome is the most recent reminder of how new infectious diseases are a continuing threat globally, and demonstrates that economic infrastructure, medical and economic, is the frontline defense."
Africa News Digest
Nigerian Ben Okri: Iraq War Unleashes 'The New Dark Age'
The consequence of the Iraq war, is a "New Dark Age"exactly what Lyndon LaRouche, U.S. statesman and candidate for the 2004 Democratic Party Presidential nomination, has long warned against. Celebrated Nigerian author Ben Okri made the same point in an April 19 article titled, "The New Dark Age," in the London Guardian.
Okri wrote: "We are now at the epicenter of a shift in the history of the world. The war against Iraq has unleashed unsuspected forces. The first signs are twofold. The need of the Americans to protect oil fields, but not hospitals, museums and libraries. This is a catastrophic failure of imagination and a signal absence of the true values of civilization. It does not bode well for the future. "The second sign is in the Iraqi people. We ask why have they turned on themselves, looted their own museums, and burnt their priceless National Library. The answer is simple. Some have been dehumanized. They have been broken by sanctions, crushed by tyranny, and annihilated by the doctrine of overwhelming force...."
Okri warned: "We may well be on the verge of a new dark age, when even the so-called highly civilized nations no longer know what the most enduring things are. And stand by and watch as darkness creeps upon us....
"The end of the world begins not with the barbarians at the gate, but with the barbarians at the highest levels of the state. All the states in the world." He concluded: "We need a new kind of sustained and passionate and enlightened action in the world of the arts and the spirit."
The Guardian article is the text of a speech that Okri delivered on the occasion of the opening of an exhibition at the British Museum.
Nigerian Opposition Challenges Obasanjo Claim of Victory in Vote
In the week between Nigeria's legislative elections of April 12, and its Presidential and gubernatorial elections April 19, the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), led by President Olusegun Obasanjo, claimed a majority of seats in both legislative houses, but was sharply challenged by the opposition parties.
For the National Assembly, the leading opposition party, the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) led by Gen. Muhammadu Buhari was credited with 82 seats out of 360, with more than 80% of wards reporting as of April 18. For the Senate, the ANPP was credited with 26 out of 109, with 18 districts not yet reporting.
Buhari told a press conference in Abuja April 16, "We witnessed abuses unprecedented in the history of elections in this country." The opposition, he said, "would like to emphasize that any repeat [on April 19] of the fraud of April 12, a fraud we have rejected in totality, will result in mass action and its consequences, which no one can today foresee." Buhari told BBC the same day, "I will not accept defeat, because we have enough evidence that the [legislative] elections have been rigged. I want a rerun wherever the results have been changed."
The press conference was held jointly with six other parties and laid down conditions necessary for the Presidential and gubernatorial elections of April 19 to be acceptable to them.
Obasanjo, in a nationwide broadcast early in the week, without waiting for the election tribunal to do its work, called the April 12 elections free and fair, "substantially devoid of massive rigging." Then, in a letter to Buhari that soon became public, Obasanjo addressed none of the issues Buhari had raised, but subtly accused him of sour grapes and then suggested that he was plotting a coup. "Direct appeal and incitement of law enforcement agencies and the military against lawfully constituted authority is ... reprehensible," he wrote.
The day before Buhari's press conference, 12 parties led by Buhari's ANPP, meeting in Abuja April 15, had spelled out the nature of the fraudulent practices. Reports of pervasive fraud and intimidation came from two Nigerian non-party observer organizations.
Tanzania Decides To Go Nuclear
Tanzania has decided to build one or more nuclear power plants. The Tanzanian Bunge (national assembly) in Dodoma enacted the Atomic Energy Bill in the first week of April. It permits the use of uranium to produce energy, but not weapons, and establishes an Atomic Energy Commission. Nuclear power plants will be kept under state control.
Passage of the bill followed a presentation by Prof. Brig. Gen. Yadon M. Kohi, Director General of Tanzania's Commission for Science and Technology (COSTECH), to members of the Bunge Standing Committee on Environment, on Tanzania's energy options, on Feb. 8.
Opposition spokesman Benedicto Mutungilehi supported the bill, pointing out that Western Europe gets about a third of its electricity from nuclear power. The chairwoman of the Bunge Environment and Natural Resources Committee, Anne Makinda, said nuclear energy was cheap and "environmentally friendly."
SciDev.Net quotes the comment of one Tanzanian: "We are [one of the] poorest countries in the world. If [the government] thinks that nuclear can pull us out of poverty, let us thank God. But if that will lead us to where Iraq is now, our government should think twice about it."
Only 10% of Tanzanians have access to electricity. Tanzania is said to have rich uranium deposits, especially in the Shinyanga region; apparently they have never been mined.
Tanzania was a showcase of British anti-development policies, marketed as "African socialism" (ujamaa) under its long-serving first President, Julius Nyerere, revered throughout Africa. His policies were not abandoned until Benjamin Mkapa, the current president, was elected in 1995.
Links to articles from Executive Intelligence Review*.
*Requires Adobe Reader®.
Greece: Child of Egypt
by Susan Kokinda
In 490 B.C., 11,000 Greeks battled 30,000 Persians on a plain north of Athens, called Marathon. In the previous century, the Persians had cut a swath of pillage and conquest westward from their homeland in what is today Iran; they defeated everything in their path: Babylon, Assyria, the entire Turkish peninsula, northern Greece, and the great milliennia-old civilization of Egypt. Nothing, it seemed, could stop them.
Economics:
Russia's Glazyev: To Stop War, Create New Monetary System
by Rachel Douglas
As the war in Iraq unfolded with shocking destruction of that country, Russian political figure and economist Sergei Glazyev took to the air waves with a bold appeal to nations opposing the invasion: Act now, to create a new monetary system.
Mexican Initiative for 'Creating' New Water Resources for Mideast Peace
by Marcia Merry Baker
An important contribution to the urgent question of how to provide water and energy resources as the basis for peace in the Mideast, has been provided by Manuel Frías Alcaraz, a prominent Mexican engineer with wide experience in hydraulic and energy projects in his country.
China's 'New Deal' Is The Engine of Asia's Growth
by Mary Burdman
Chinese leaders have vowed to quadrupal the size of the national economy by 2020--an enormous challenge, which will require cooperation with other Eurasian nations, to the benefit of all concerned.
International:
'Anti-War Three' Hold St. Petersburg Meetings
by Rainer Apel
The April 11-12 meetings of French President Jacques Chirac, German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, and Russian President Vladimir Putin signalled progress toward a Eurasian alliance.
Iraq's Antiquities
A U.S. Faction Wanted Looting of Museums
by Muriel Mirak-Weissbach
When Mongol invaders razed magnificent buildings and plundered precious objects in Baghdad seven centuries ago, they did so out of ignorance and hatred. But under the barbarian policy of the Rumsfeld Pentagon, the American armed forces deliberately and methodically allowed looting of the most important cultural institutions of Iraq, robbing it of priceless examplars of thousands of years of history.
Brits, Neo-Cons Launch New Imperial Offensive
by Mark Burdman
Now that the American and British governments have declared 'victory' in the war against Iraq, the publishing empires of Lord Conrad Black and Rupert Murdoch, the two leading promoters of fascistoid neo-conservative causes around the world, have gone into overdrive to herald the coming-into-being of a new, aggressive, and supposedly matchless 'Pax Americana.'
Six Powers, or Five? Russia Offers Guarantee to North Korea
by Kathy Wolfe
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov proposed on April 10 that Russia, China, South Korea, the United States, and Japan sign a multilateral non-aggression pact with North Korea, a 'Six-Power' guarantee to end the Korean crisis.
Bush Must Now Push For Middle East Peace
by Dean Andromidas
President Bush's only exit strategy from the current quagmire of spreading war and chaos, is for him to move immediately and aggressively to implementwithout compromisethe Israel/Palestine two-state solution, with the needed economic investment to assure that it works, said Democratic Presidential pre-candidate Lyndon LaRouche on April 12.
Afghan Crisis Coming: What Will U.S. Do?
by Ramtanu Maitra
Notwithstanding repeated Pentagon assertions, U.S. troops and the International Security Assistance Forces (ISAF) are all at sea in Afghanistan. If late reports are to be believed, Washington, facing a Taliban takeover in the South, is trying to turn the tide by concentrating on what it describes as 'reconstruction Afghanistan.' But as usual, stated American intent and actual actions differ.
National:
Syria War:
Straussians' 'Clean Break' Again
by Michele Steinberg
'If George Bush attacks Syria, all Hell will break loose in the Arab world against us,' stated a retired U.S. general, who served under World War II Gen.'Vinegar Joe' Stilwell. He believes the policies of neo-con Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz are insane.
Iraq War Fuels Military Transformation Debate
by Carl Osgood
The sudden fall of Baghdad after a messy three-week campaign will, no doubt, add further fuel to the debate that has long been raging in military circles regarding military transformation. Were the transformational concepts, long advocated by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, instrumental to the military outcome, or were the troops on the ground forced to resort to much maligned but more traditional 'kinetic methods' to defeat Iraqi forces?
Rumsfeld Pentagon Purge Echoes Hitler's in 1938
by Steve Douglas
In his March 31 New Yorker article on the battle between Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and military officers, Seymour Hersh speaks of 'Rumsfeld's personal contempt for many of the senior generals and admirals' and that he is 'especially critical of the Army.' Hersh reports that Rumsfeld has purged the Joint Staff, the operating arm of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, by replacing all those senior planners who challenged his view.
Andrew Marshall: Key Architect of Utopian Military Policy
by Carl Osgood
In early 2001, newly confirmed Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld selected Andrew Marshall, the director of the Pentagon's Office of Net Assessment (ONA), to conduct a review of military strategy and force structure. The review was to lay the foundation for the transformation of the military that then candidate George Bush had promoted in a speechsaid to have been written by prote´ge´s of Marshallat the Citadel in September 1999.
Robert Maxwell: A Spy BetrayedBut Whose Spy?
by George Canning
Robert Maxwell, Israel's Superspy: The Life and Murder of a Media Mogul, by Gordon Thomas and Martin Dillon.
This book on the late London-based publisher and tycoon Robert Maxwell is less a biography than an exposition of particular aspects of Maxwell's life and death. It particularly focusses upon Maxwell's role as an international operative of the Israeli state and the Mossad intelligence service...
African-American Woman Was a Pioneer in American Classical Music Tradition
by Susan W. Bowen
A Biography of E. Azalia Hackley, 1867-1922, African-American Singer and Social Activist, by Lisa Pertillar Brevard
Lisa Brevard's biography of Emma Azalia Hackley (1867-1922) tells the story of a remarkable but little-known African-American woman, who, during a cultural 'little dark age' in America, fought to bring Renaissance culture and education to former slaves and their children.
The 'New Economy,' Frankenstein's Monster
by Stuart Rosenblatt
When Genius Failed: The Rise and Fall of Long Term Capital Management, by Roger Lowenstein.
A battle broke out among financial policy-making circles in the United States and Europe in February and March 2003, centering on what to do about the out-of-control, completely unregulated financial bubble in the market for so-called fi- nancial derivatives contracts.
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