Larouche Online Almanac

Published: Monday, Feb. 10, 2003

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Powell Apparent Victim of Hoax

by Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr.

Feb. 7—With the 2004 U.S. Presidential campaign now in motion, there are more than a few reasons to doubt that any of my visible rivals for that office have the combined intellectual and moral qualifications needed to deal with the combined onrush of a general economic collapse and a desperate push toward a spreading dark age of world wars from which no actual exit is foreseen.

A suddenly unleashing, already raging international scandal over certain dubious elements included in U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell's UNO Security Council address, tends to discredit my Democratic Party rivals even more than a Powell who was plainly carrying out a mission crafted by others.

For example, U.S. credibility is under assault as today's Reuters "World News" dispatches featured breaking news which strongly suggests that Colin Powell's UNO Security Council address was, in significant part, a hoax based on cooked-up documents of Britain's Blair government.

According to Reuters, "Glen Rangwala, an Iraq specialist at Cambridge University, who analyzed the Downing Street dossier" praised by Powell, "told Reuters that 11 of its 19 pages were 'taken wholesale from academic papers'.... Sections in the dossier on Saddam's security apparatus drew heavily on an article written last year by Ibrahim al-Marashi, an American postgraduate student of Iraqi descent who works at the Monterrey Institute of International Studies in California."
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this week in history

February 10-16

At this point in world history, there is no more appropriate historical event to commemorate this coming week than the birthday of Abraham Lincoln, Feb. 12, 1809. Abraham Lincoln—whose life culminated in his achievements in the Presidency and the winning of the Civil War, only to be cut short by his assassination—represents the most sublime character to be found in American history, and his life holds deep lessons for those who aspire to bring the United States back to its republican roots.

The revisionist critiques of Lincoln, which have tended to dominate popular culture and the pseudo-intelligentsia in recent decades, should be rejected out of hand. Lincoln represented the Leibnizian commitment of the Founding Fathers of the United States throughout his entire life, and waged war in order to retain the survival of that quality of a republic. He understood the sacrifices that had to be made in order to reach that objective, and put himself personally at risk for that purpose. The fact that he was murdered before he could put to work his own plan for reconciliation of the nation, was a tragedy for the nation, but his achievement in saving the Union did not die.

There is no adequate way, in this short space, to do justice to Lincoln's achievement, but we'll point to certain aspects of his thinking, which led him to go against popular opinion, on the basis of his principled commitment to the good of the country.

One can start with his economic program, which he summarized in an 1820s campaign speech as comprised of three simple planks: the national bank, the tariff, and internal improvements. These were the essential components of the American System of Economics, which relied on a sovereign commitment to promoting the improvement of living standard for current and future generations. They stayed with Lincoln all of his political life, leading him to promote visionary schemes such as the Transcontinental Railroad—which he then was able to implement as President.

On foreign relations, Lincoln made a name for himself during his term in Congress, by opposing the Confederate-inspired war against Mexico. Those who today complain that no patriot should dare oppose the unjust war against the Arab world, in the guise of war against Iraq, should take a look at Lincoln's stand in upholding a standard of justice, rather than the populist "support the troops." This approach to the United States' sister republics in the Western Hemisphere was realized in a positive manner during Lincoln's Presidency, when he offered the hand of support to Mexico's Benito Juarez, who was embattled by the oligarchical forces of Europe.

Behind both of these "objective" policy measures, lay Lincoln's commitment to the idea of every human being having God-given rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness—and to the idea that government must provide the conditions under which these rights could be achieved. That this was his self-conscious commitment was demonstrated in two other actions he took, both of which helped lead to his tragic death, while at the same time providing the crucial moral foundations for the post-war survival of the United States, both in its borders, and as a model internationally.

The first action I refer to, is the Emancipation Proclamation, and Lincoln's determination to get rid of slavery. We dealt with this in the first issue of EIW for 2003, but it deserves to be mentioned again. Lincoln was engaged in constant battle on the issue of slavery, against those who wished to destroy the Union in order to allegedly abolish slavery, and against those who were determined to preserve it. In fact, either of these extremes would have destroyed the prospect of a free United States, and Lincoln knew it. He chose to hew to his basic commitment that slavery was a moral evil, in order to win the conditions to abolish it.

The second action was Lincoln's commitment to reconciliation after the war, a reconciliation in which his approach to economic development in all parts of the nation, represented the only hope. We find this principle expressed more poetically than in any other statement by any American President, in the Gettysburg Address (in which there is no reference to "sides"), and in Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address. This kind of commitment to the highest form of justice for all, rather than retribution, is a quality which we find so lacking in most of our public officials today.

Read here the conclusion of that Second Inaugural, given on March 4, 1865:

"With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."

A little more than a month later, the war having finally been won, "Father Abraham" was assassinated at the hand of those committed to preventing that "just and lasting peace." Yet Lincoln's impact was immortal, leading to the incarnation of the principles he fought for all over the world, and eventually, in the Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and, today, in the leadership of Lyndon LaRouche.

The world should truly give thanks that Abraham Lincoln was born.

Facing the Question of Immortality

This is an edited transcript of the discussion which followed Lyndon LaRouche's Feb. 1 presentation to the combined East Coast/West Coast youth cadre schools. The entire discussion can be found at www.larouchein2004.com; it will also be published in EIR Feb. 21, 2003.

On the Latest Shuttle Failure: Blame the Bookkeeper Mentality
by Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr
.
"No one should draw a premature conclusion respecting the immediate causes for Saturday's awful news of the breakup of the Columbia. Nevertheless, we can be, and must be aware of a certain degree of preventable risk under which theNASA program has been compelled to operate..."

LaRouche: Chavez's Insanity Must Be Reined In — Before It Triggers a 'Pinochet' Solution in Venezuela

"Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has responded in his characteristically unstable and provocative manner to the useful efforts of former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and the Lula [da Silva] government in Brazil, to defuse the explosive Venezuelan crisis, and initiate serious negotiations between the government and opposition there," U.S. Democratic Presidential pre-candidate Lyndon LaRouche commented Feb. 7.

In Depth Coverage From Executive Intelligence Review
Links to articles from Executive Intelligence Review*.
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Feature:

LaRouches in India Strengthen the 'Strategic Triangle'
by Mary Burdman
As the international economic and strategic crisis reached a turning point in mid-January, Lyndon LaRouche and his wife Helga Zepp-LaRouche visited India during Jan. 10-22. In India, they made a vital intervention to promote development of the 'Strategic Triangle' of cooperation among India, China, and Russia.

LaRouche Speech at the Institute of Economic Growth
The Indispensable Role of the State In Reorganizing a Bankrupt System

Mr. LaRouche gave this speech on Jan. 16, 2003 to the Institute of Economic Growth, a think-tank at New Delhi University.

LaRouche at the University of Jaipur.
Globalization of the World Economy Is a Prescription for Disaster
Lyndon LaRouche gave this presentation at the University of Jaipur, India, on Jan. 21. He was the guest of the university's Political Science Department and the Federation of Rajasthan University and College Teachers' Association.
See p. 46:
Uncertain Leadership, an Unfocussed India
by Ramtanu Maitra

Poverty-AIDS Spiral Is Threat to Indian Nation
by Mary Burdman
Extreme poverty, the fast-spreading plague of addictive drugs, and mass migration to huge, unliveable 'super-cities,' are all coming together to generate a serious threat to the people of India.

Economics:

Shuttle 'Fix' Means a Change In Economic Policy Axioms
by Marsha Freeman
It will take some time for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and the independent investigating board appointed on Feb. 2, to determine what happened in the final moments of the flight of the Space Shuttle Columbia, and what led up to its catastrophic accident....Rounding up the 'usual suspects,' however, will provide little insight into what happened; nor will it fix the problem.

How Inflation in the U.S. Economy Is Hidden
by Richard Freeman
...Then, some cost-cutting accountant dreamed up the 'donut' substitute for the regular spare tire. It is a scourge of the American driver. The donut is a small kiddy-car-like tire. After putting it on, one's car has three real tires and a kiddy tire, causing it to wobble and making themaximum safe speed45 mph....

Bush Sends Irrelevant Budget to Capitol Hill
by Carl Osgood

President George Bush's fiscal year 2004 budget plan arrived on Capitol Hill on Feb. 3 without anybody having a clue as to whether it means anything. For the first time in living memory, a President's budget plan for the next fiscal year was submitted to Congress before the Congress had finished work on the current fiscal year's spending bills.

  • A Cut To Dismantle Amtrak
    The Fiscal Year 2004 budget presented by President Bush on Feb. 3 proposes to give the nation's only national railroad, Amtrak, another push toward its dismantlement.

Britain Seeks Roman Glory While She Burns
by Alan Clayton
'The country has ground to a halt. How will we cope if we go to war?' So wrote Richard Alleyne in the London Daily Telegraph on Feb. 1 as commuters across Britain struggled to get home through a snowstorm..."

It's the Economy, Herr Schro¨der!
Report From Germany
by Rainer Apel
German Chancellor Gerhard Schro¨der's Social Democrats (SPD) suffered a devastating defeat in the two Feb. 2 elections for state parliament: The SPD lost more than 10% in Hesse and more than 14% in Lower Saxony. Almost a million voters deserted the SPD, half of them staying home and not casting ballots at all.

International:

Israeli Economy Crashing, While Sharon Drives for War
by Dean Andromidas
As Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon struggles to put together a new government, the fight for a policy alternative is unfolding. The economy is in a tailspin, and Sharon and his generals are stepping up their war crimes against the Palestinian Authority.

Commonwealth Revolt Grows vs. Warmongers
by Mark Burdman
Open political warfare has erupted in Great Britain, and in leading traditional outposts of the British Empire/Commonwealth outposts such as Australia, over the Iraq war. Pro-war Prime Ministers Tony Blair of Britain and John Howard of Australia are getting deeper and deeper into the mire, as they shamelessly support this insane war adventure.

  • Scandal in Britain Over 'Dossier' Cited by Powell
    A British dossier on Iraq, released on Feb. 4 and lavishly praised in his UN speech by U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell the next day, is significantly based on material produced 12 years ago by a graduate student, BBC reported on Feb. 7.

Schiller Institute Conference
France and Germany: 'Let Us Turn Our Countries Into a Fountain for the Good'
by Christine Bierre
The fraternal spirit of France's President Charles de Gaulle and Germany's Chancellor Konrad Adenauer was in evidence at a meeting organized in Paris on Feb. 4 by the Schiller Institute, in commemoration of the 40th anniversary of the signing of the Elyse´e Treaty by de Gaulle and Adenauer.

Afghan Karzai Looks To Iran as U.S. Sun Sets
by Ramtanu Maitra

As the United States brought in its third aircraft carrier, the USS Abraham Lincoln...the ground situation in Afghanistan—the last war—began getting hopeless for the Americans.

Venezuela:
The Choices Are Not 'Che' or 'Pinochet'
by Gretchen Small
International friends of Venezuela attempting to foster an electoral route back from the brink of civil war for the country, have come up against the hard reality that putting a political straitjacket on the megalomaniacal President Hugo Cha´vez is going to require more audacious thinking and action...

Interview: Aram Karapetian
Armenian MP Survives Knife Attack, as Presidential Campaign Turns Violent
Armenian Member of Parliament Haik Babookhanian, a leader of the Union for Constitutional Rights (UCR)and longtime friend of the Schiller Institute, was stabbed during a Presidential campaign rally in the town of Artashat on Feb. 4

National:

LaRouche Mobilizes Youth To Save a Morally Bankrupt Nation
by Jeffrey Steinberg
Lyndon LaRouche simultaneously addressed East and West Coast gatherings of his rapidly expanding youth movement on Feb. 1. Nearly 200 men and women between the ages of 18 and 25 engaged in a four-hour dialogue with the Democratic Party 2004 Presidential pre-candidate.

Powell UN Debacle Shows LaRouche's Crucial Role
by Michele Steinberg
In his internationally webcast Jan. 28 State of the Union speech, Lyndon LaRouche, candidate for the Democratic Party Presidential nomination in 2004, bluntly stated that there is no reason for the United States to have to engage in war against any country—especially Iraq, or North Korea. There is no threat that the United States cannot handle diplomatically with help from friends and allies, LaRouche said, as the unchallenged political and military power on Earth...

  • 'It's All Just Show Business: — A Former CIA Analyst Reviews Powell's Speech
    by Edward Spannaus
    One of the United States' most experienced intelligence professionals on the subject of Iraq, says that he did not find Secretary of State Colin Powell's presentation to the United Nations Security Council to be persuasive, and he also told EIR that there is much dissatisfaction in both the U.S. and British intelligence communities, over the politicization of intelligence by the Bush Administration and the Blair government in Britain.

Lewis Libby Bestrides Underworld of Empire
by Anton Chaitkin
Lewis Libby, chief of staff and national security aide to Vice President Dick Cheney, is a leader of the Administration faction promoting war with Iraq and a global explosion of other conflicts.

View This week's Almanac Section*, as a long .pdf file.


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