LaRouche to Russia: G-20 Should Eject British Empire!

March 16 (EIRNS)—Responding to an official position paper for the April 20 London G-20 summit, published today on the Kremlin web site, Lyndon LaRouche warned, "This is amateur night! No competent result can occur with an approach like that." He urged that the G-20 immediately have one member subtracted, namely, the British Empire.

The Russian document endorses dozens of "improvements" in the existing, bankrupt international monetary system and its institutions. Included are an upgrade of the International Monetary Fund, a proliferation of "regional reserve currencies" and regional "financial centers," and the issuance of "a supranational reserve currency" by the IMF or another supranational institution.

"This is all monetarism," exclaimed LaRouche, "This would take us right back to the monetarist schemes of John Maynard Keynes in 1937, when he said the Nazi system would be the best one for implementing his monetary policies."

Russian leaders should "break this pattern of sophistry," LaRouche said. "We are looking into a long dark age ahead. We must eliminate the institutions, which have brought on this problem. And that means the Group of 20 should be minus 1. If the British Empire is included, the result will be a disaster. Don't let them in on the negotiations stage. Reforming these failed institutions won't work. It will result in failure. The first failure is to let the British Empire in! Sure, Britain can come in—but, only after a working system has been set up.

"The Russians don't know what they're doing," LaRouche continued. "This is a general breakdown crisis, and we are on the verge of a dark age. In these circumstances, any reforms based on looking for agreement with the existing institutions, with the British Empire's monetarist system, will be a disaster.

"I have laid out a simple, American-model system," LaRouche said, referring to his four-power plan for the USA, Russia, China, and India to take the initiative. "Eliminate the monetary system. Go with a credit system, for long-term investment projects in infrastructure. Eliminate the monetarist characteristics of the world system which we've had, ever since Franklin Delano Roosevelt was replaced by that creep, Harry S Truman.

"The British have to be out of the picture, in creating a new system. They can come in after you've made the new system. But the Russians have to know that the group in Britain and Wall Street is an extension of that, is fascist, and you cannot reach agreement with them without submitting to fascism. Stalin would have known that, at a certain point."

The Russian expressions of hope for institutions to "finance development," including nuclear power, are ridiculous, as long as Moscow is seeking "agreement" with the London agenda, said LaRouche. "It's like trying to cross a donkey with an ostrich. You'll get a feathered species which brays like a jackass, and lays eggs."

LaRouche summed up as follows: "Gentlemen, you've got to understand that this is a general breakdown crisis, and you cannot compromise with the existing system if you wish to survive. You're on the edge of a dark age, a new dark age. If you don't know it, you're not qualified to negotiate anything. Because, the problem is, we have to deal with the onrush of a global new dark age, now. Now! Not some distant time in the future. So, so-called reforms, based on trying to find an agreement, are a damn waste of time. This will not work, and I'm afraid that people who don't listen to me, are going to get us all killed."

Lavrov Visits Afghanistan, Presents Initiative at SCO Conference

March 27 (EIRNS)—Delivering the inaugural speech at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) special conference on Afghanistan, held in Moscow today, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that "for several years now in the framework of the SCO-Afghanistan Contact Group, the tasks of fostering cooperation in the fight against common threats, including along the perimeter of the Afghan borders, have been considered.... In this spirit, through joint work with Kabul, not by creating any 'cordon sanitaire,' the SCO and CSTO [Collective Security and Treaty Organization] suggest creating anti-narcotics, anti-terrorist, and financial security belts in the region."

Although Moscow has spoken on a number of occasions of creating anti-narcotics and anti-terrorist belts, this is the first time that the urgency of a financial security belt has been identified.

The SCO includes Russia, China, Kazakstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan as full members, and India, Iran, Pakistan, and Mongolia as observers. One of the key objectives of the SCO conference was to team up with the West and international organizations to address the Afghanistan problem. Among the participants were: UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon; Mark Perrin de Brichambaut, Secretary-General of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE); U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary for South and Central Asian Affairs Patrick Moon; and NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer. In addition, there were representatives from the Group of Eight countries, the CSTO, the European Union, and the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC). The meeting was to be followed by an international conference on Afghanistan, under UN auspices, in The Hague on March 31. Lavrov will attend.

A U.S. official, who asked not to be named, said on the sidelines of the SCO meeting: "We see Iran as an important player related to Afghanistan. We see this as a very productive area for engagement in the future."

In advance of the two international conferences, Lavrov visited Kabul, on March 16. He and Afghanistan's Foreign Minister Rangin Dadfar Spanta, who was to attend the SCO meeting ten days later, signed an intergovernmental agreement to cooperate in the war on drugs. In Kabul, Lavrov spoke out against a surge of foreign troops into the country, which he said would not solve its security problems. A Russian foreign ministry spokesman, quoted by Itar Tass, said that the two "sides pointed out the special importance of regional cooperation, including Afghan-Pakistani, in fighting terrorism and drugs-related crimes."

A Density of Russian-American Contacts

March 21 (EIRNS)—In the run-up to the first meeting between Russian President Medvedev and U.S. President Obama, scheduled for April 1, on the eve of the G-20 summit, there has been a density of contacts between high-level Russian and American emissaries. Notable are:

* A meeting of the Kissinger-Primakov Commission in Moscow. According to Nezavisimaya Gazeta of March 20, this was an expanded session which, in addition to Kissinger, included James Baker, George Shultz, Sam Nunn, Robert Rubin, and William Perry. The Russian side included Igor Ivanov and former Chief of Staff Gen. Yuri Baluyevsky. The Commission group was received by President Medvedev.

* Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachov visited the White House March 20, where he briefly met Obama, and then held an hour-long session with Vice President Biden. According to Itar-TASS, the subject was potential U.S.-Russian partnership.

* An Atlantic Council delegation was in Moscow for a conference at the USA-Canada Institute, to discuss the U.S. NSC document, "Global Trends 2025." At that meeting, U.S. Ambassador to Moscow John Beyrle announced that Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia, Patrick Moon, would attend the Moscow SCO conference on Afghanistan, and emphasized that the U.S. attendance, the first ever, is an indication that Washington is now listening more to Moscow.