An Emergency Broadcast:
To Stop Thermonuclear War, Bring on the World Economic Recovery

by Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr. (1922-2019)

[Print version of this editorial]

We present here excerpts from year-end remarks made by Lyndon LaRouche on December 23, 2011, ten years ago, which confirm the prescience of this genius, and demonstrates why Helga Zepp-LaRouche has called for the year 2022—the 100th anniversary of his birth—to be known as “The Year of Lyndon LaRouche.” The transcript of Mr. LaRouche’s full dialogue is available here.

We are now on the verge of what must be called World War III: This will be thermonuclear World War III—not pre-nuclear war, not nuclear war, but thermonuclear war. The targets, principally, are Russia and China. These are the two principal targets. The war is intended to start, as of now, with an operation coming out of Iran, and it will probably be set up in some form. This war targeting Iran, is supposed to bring Israel into play; that may or may not happen, but that is the option with which this war plan started.

The issue is as follows: The present world system, the economic system, is in the process of disintegrating. Exactly how that will occur is uncertain, but it is happening. The intention is to eliminate two nations—Russia and China—and this means nuclear weapons; it means thermonuclear weapons. That part is engaged….

Now, at this point, the United States, nations of Europe, Russia, China, and other countries, are poised for exactly this war.

The background of the war is the fact that the entire world is going bankrupt, especially the trans-Atlantic region, especially Europe, and also the United States, and the nations of South America and elsewhere, as well. This war has been on the way since the beginning of President Obama’s illegal war in Libya. This Libyan war was intended to set up the trigger for launching the larger war which would nominally involve nations such as Syria and other nations around there, but then with the attack on Iran, with the attack on Syria, it would bring into play Russia, because Russia would be, then, a major target. And Russia is prepared for this: Russia is the leading nuclear power, together with China, on the other side.

The major capability of conducting this war depends upon the nuclear capabilities and related capabilities of the United States. European nations, such as Britain and so forth, are nuclear powers, but they don’t have the depth of nuclear weaponry that we in the United States have. And therefore, the heavy burden of launching a nuclear war—or thermonuclear war, actually—depends upon the capabilities of the United States. And we, of course, have the naval forces of the United States in the eastern Mediterranean, and also in the Persian Gulf area now, staged to actually unleash a thermonuclear capability against the targetted enemies for this attack, which are Russia and also China, but other targets as well….

The other part of the background, is—and there’s a lot of foolery in this as well—that the trans-Atlantic region of the world is now bankrupt. The bankruptcy from the United States’ standpoint, was set into motion back in 2007, when the beginning of the bailout process was set into motion. Since that time, the entirety of the trans-Atlantic region, particularly the United States and Europe, have been trapped into a bailout crisis, a hyperinflationary bailout crisis. At this point, the debt which has been accumulated since 2007, under this program, is such that every part of Europe at this time, under the present rules and the present arrangements, is hopelessly bankrupt! They could never recover as living nations, under the present degree of indebtedness they have. The same thing is true of the United States; Europe is a little more acute. That’s what’s happened….

The author of this thing is the British, but we’ve had President Bush, the young President Bush, and we’ve had Obama now for nearly 12 years in office; and in these 12 years, the wreckage that has been done to or made of the U.S. and Europe, has brought us to this point, with the aid of this hyperinflationary process, set into motion, beginning in the Autumn of 2007. That’s where we stand.

Now, what we have to do—there are solutions for this bankruptcy. First of all, we have to put the world through bankruptcy—that is, a legitimate bankruptcy operation. We can do that, by, first of all, in the United States, for example—and other nations can copy this measure in cooperation with the United States—we go with a Glass-Steagall law, a U.S. Glass-Steagall law. And there are nations of Europe who are thinking of adopting the same Glass-Steagall law.

Under a Glass-Steagall law, the greater part of the debt of European nations, and the United States and others, will be wiped out, in effect, because under Glass-Steagall, the gambling debts, which are the major part of the indebtedness of the United States, will be simply put into a special category where somebody’s going to try to figure out how to get these debts paid—and they will never be paid! They will simply be wiped off the books; there’s no other solution.

Wiping that debt off the books, cancelling the bailout debt, will mean that the United States, and Europe if they join, will be in a position to reorganize their finances, to create a credit system, and actually going into a new kind of Hamiltonian kind of credit system, a banking system which will enable the United States, and also Europe and other nations if they join, to organize a financial recovery.

In other words, what would happen, immediately: Remember, most of this bailout debt, the Wall Street debt, the London debt, the other bailout debt, is absolutely worthless! It can never be repaid! It never could be repaid: And the only solution, of course, for this thing, was to have this war. And if the British Empire came out as the victor in such a war, with the support of the United States, then they would cancel their debts, and they would go about their business. But, the population of the world would be reduced, greatly, through hunger, starvation, and so forth, which is about to occur anyway.