UNITED STATES NEWS DIGEST
LaRouche Offers Only Path to Middle East Peace
The following is excerpted from a front-page editorial in the April 15 issue of The New Federalist.
Day by day, minute by minute, the Israel Defense Forces are carrying out a systematic Nazi-like slaughter campaign, consciously modelled on the Nazis' Warsaw Ghetto assault, against the Palestinian Authority and its population. The daily horrors only foreshadow the global religious war to which the conflict is leading. Most of those who dare acknowledge this reality, throw up their arms in despair. Some shriek for revenge. Others, who defend the action, like Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, blurt out with guilty consciences, that IDF actions will lead them to The Hague, to be tried for crimes against humanity.
What is the solution? It lies strictly in the political domain, specifically in the adoption of the policies of U.S. Democratic Presidential pre-candidate Lyndon LaRouche....
Israel's Reichstag Fire
It was 1995 when the decisive step was taken, that has led toward the current gruesome conflict. The turning point was the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, followed by the failure of the Israeli political leadership to act against the assassins. What this turn of events showed, was the clear intention on the part of the dominant Israeli elite, to carry out the Nazi-style policies which are now underway.
Arafat is right when he says that the current Sharon government is comprised of the grouping which killed his peace partner at Oslo, Yitzhak Rabin. Ariel Sharon, Benjamin Netanyahu, the settlers' movement, and sections of military intelligence were all part of the buildup which explicitly called for the murder of Rabin, as an alleged traitor to the Israel cause. Frenzied rallies were held against Rabin, calling him a "Nazi" for making peace with Arafat. "Religious" death sentences were issued by certain rabbis--and then the deed was done, by a known intelligence stringer. Then it was covered up.
Equally important, the murder was also supported, and covered for, among certain leading circles in the United States.
What resulted from Rabin's murder is what we see today: the emergence of a literally fascist movement in Israel. These are the fanatics who call Palestinians a "cancer," as the Nazis called the Jews. These are the fanatics who have no hesitation in knocking down the houses of, or starving, or depriving of medical care, or shooting, tens of thousands of Palestinians....
Thus, we lawfully come to the current point, following deliberate provocations by Ariel Sharon (such as his fall 2000 trip to Haram al-Sharif), and by Sharon's collaborators in the Israeli-created Hamas movement, who have carried out the bulk of suicide bombings to drive the Israelis berserk with fear. We have reached the point of an open Israeli military attempt to wipe out any Palestinian point of resistance--just as the Nazis did to the Warsaw Ghetto Jews. And by resisting, the Palestinians in the refugee camps and West Bank cities have become resistance fighters like the Warsaw Ghetto heroes, determined to die fighting, rather than be exterminated like dogs.
LaRouche's Solution
But to ensure that the bloodshed is not in vain, it is we in the United States, especially, and elsewhere around the world, who have to act. We have to act to put LaRouche's economic and political policy onto the top of the international agenda, and ram it through.
What that means is that LaRouche, by name, must come to dominate discussion of the Middle East crisis.
First, there is LaRouche's unique bravery in identifying the Nazi-like actions of the Sharon government, which identification must be echoed everywhere. This is a crucial step toward stopping the atrocities....
Second, there is LaRouche's insistence that the U.S. government withdraw support for Sharon's government--which could not survive a day without American backing.
And third, LaRouche's peace policy must be adopted now. This involves two steps: first, the adoption of a Peace of Westphalia approach, which drops the principle of revenge and reprisal, for that of recognition and forgiveness; and second, the return to the perspective of the Oslo Accords, especially around the economic protocols. LaRouche's own Oasis Plan, for high-technology water development, in the context of a mass of cheap, directed-credit coming into the region, is the indispensable complement to that Oslo perspective.
Too optimistic? Too far-fetched? No! We, who respect the dignity of the lives of all human beings, and their posterity, and strive to bring about the "common good," have no right to "give up" on fighting for the only policy that actually can save us from the Clash of Civilizations.
Is Joe Lieberman a Jabotinsky-ite?
While Washington, D.C.'s Roll Call reported that almost the entire 100-member Senate was expected to turn out to hear ultra-rightwing former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on April 10, only about 20 showed up. Netanyahu's event was "officially" hosted by Sen. John Kyl (R-Ariz.), and arranged by Washington's most fanatical neo-conservatives, but it was Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.) who was the real star.
The former Democratic Party Vice Presidential nominee embraced Netanyahu's gleeful announcement that [President Clinton's] "Oslo is dead." Lieberman said "no one was better suited to speak at this moment than his friend" Netanyahu, and excused Ariel Sharon's horrific attacks on Palestinian civilians. Has Lieberman defected to the beliefs of Vladimir Jabotinsky, the rightwing Zionist who admired Mussolini and Hitler, and believed in the ethnic cleansing of all Arabs--or has he always been a believer in the racist theories of Jabotinsky, whom Israel's founding father David ben Gurion called "Vladimir Hitler"?
Trilateral Commission Closed Meeting Agenda: War on Iraq
This year's Trilateral Commission meeting in Washington, D.C., April 6-8, was more secretive than usual, with many of the journalists among the 250 guests observing the "gag" rule censorship. Shouldn't American citizens wonder at the fact that three top Bush Administration officials would appear before the secretive body to deliver major policy statements, and fail to share information with the American public?
Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and Secretary of State Colin Powell, all delivered the messages that the war on Iraq is on. It is not a matter of if, but when.
Klaus-Dieter Frankenberger, the correspondent for Germany's Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in Washington, reported on the chilling message: "What began as a war against terrorism, will find its continuation in a war against the regime of Saddam Hussein--not tomorrow [or] the day after tomorrow, but better earlier than later," he wrotes, adding, "Anyone who had up to that point doubts, about the determination [Entschlossenheit] of the Administration, about whether it was really serious about this, had to give up these doubts, after the appearances of Ministers Powell and Rumsfeld, and the Vice President."
Powell made clear the aim is "regime change in Baghdad," Frankenberger reported. Powell is quoted: "There rules a diabolical regime which oppresses its own people and threatens its neighbors." There are no military plans yet, Powell said. But, Frankenberger adds, "One does not have to have a great imagination to come to the conclusion that there probably is indeed already one proposal or another on which the President then will decide." As to the skeptical Europeans, Powell said, "confidently, and not ironically," according to Frankenberger, "More than one will then join with our position."
"Rumsfeld brought the discussion to its point," Frankenberger continued; "he led it to the intersection point of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction in the hands of people of Saddam's calibre. Only with difficulty did he conceal a certain impatience with those who consider American intentions immature: 'Iraq is conducting an aggressive program of development and production of weapons of mass destruction.' There can be no 'confusion' that it would be best for the world for Saddam to disappear ... people like him should not be allowed to rule Iraq nor to represent a threat to the world.' Rumsfeld's impatience took on a tone of slight anger, when one European demanded 'evidence and a plan,' with which public opinion in Europe could agree with a campaign against Iraq. Rumsfeld, who is said to have a razor-sharp intelligence, found the demand for evidence unjustified, maybe even crazy, too. When, at the end of the second Gulf War, the Iraqi arsenals and laboratories were put under the microscope, it was discovered that Iraq was much more advanced than thought, especially regarding nuclear weapons."
Then came Cheney, "whose almost shy, utterly unglamorous manner seem to signal that this was about the matter itself, and it was serious.... 'Sooner or later, the world has to deal with this problem.'" Frankenberger indicated that Cheney seemed to dismiss inspectors, which Powell had said might help. As for the intention to bring Europe into deliberations, "the answer was not yes," but a hope that they would find a nuclear-armed Saddam to be frightening. Cheney demanded of Europe: "'What is your approach to dealing with this problem?' The Europeans should in fact answer the question, because it appears their intelligence services are reporting that something is coming together. Cheney--and he did not have to say so explicitly, to communicate it to his public--would not wait for the answer with anxiety."
Cheney, however, did show concern about the worries of Iraq's neighbors, fearing the disintegration of Iraq. He reports that Cheney said, "'We really want to keep the territorial integrity of Iraq,' and acted as if we were already in a 'Post-Saddam Phase.'"
"Cheney's, Rumsfeld's, and Powell's listeners, at any rate, understood that the U.S. is determined not to let Iraq off the leash.
"Participants could not remember ever having attended an annual Trilateral Commission meeting, in which the host country was represented with such a high-ranking delegation."
Lack of Health-Care Relief Still Jeopardizes Steel Industry
When President Bush announced tariffs on some categories of foreign steel on March 5, industry and union leaders signalled that this was only one of several Federal actions needed, if the devastated steel-producing capacity remaining in the U.S. were to be salvaged. At the top of the list of additional necessary measures, was Federal funding of the so-called "legacy" costs, an estimated $12 billion of underfunded health benefits owed to steelworker retirees.
Lyndon LaRouche, in assessing the significance of the Bush tariff decision, cautioned that health and pension issues could be a key dividing line between the Administration, the unions, and the companies, in that attempts to salvage and consolidate portions of the industry, without assuring workers' benefits, could resemble the road taken under Hitler by economic plenipotentiary Hermann Göring.
As of this writing, amid much mobilization talk from the leadership of the United Steelworkers of America (USWA,) no legislation has been introduced, despite expectations that it would put before the Congress by Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) by mid-March. The USWA is privately circulating draft legislation which would fund the health benefits, partly through revenues collected from the tariffs on steel, and has expressed hopes that it would be introduced by April 12.
More recently, yet another variation has emerged, one which would tack on the legacy legislation, as an amendment to the energy bill; then, in a quid pro quo, Senate steel caucus members would lend support to a Republican initiative to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil and gas development. Some press have gone so far as to report that the legacy costs would be funded from the revenue generated in the oil fields. It is to be feared that in the midst of all this wheeling and dealing, the essential need to assure the welfare of steel retirees, not to mention the continued existence of steel production in the U.S., will be eclipsed.
Cases in point: The day after the tariffs were announced, another major steel producer, National Steel, declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy. On March 31, all company-provided health insurance was terminated for 80,000 retirees and dependents of liqudated LTV Steel.
Feinstein Attempt To Re-Regulate Energy Derivatives Blocked by Democrats
Defections by Democratic Senators Mary Landrieu (D-La.), Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.), Zell Miller (D-Ga.) and Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) were crucial to blocking an amendment introduced by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) that sought to prevent Enron-style speculative bubbles from continuing. These Democrats joined 46 Republicans in voting against cloture, thereby allowing entities such as Enron to continue to operate without any regulation or oversight whatsoever. This defeat of re-regulation comes after months of "crocodile tears" over how Enron employees lost their jobs and pensions.
On March 19, the Senate began debate on the Feinstein amendment to the energy bill, which would have re-imposed Federal regulation on derivatives contracts--those traded both on exchanges, and over-the-counter. Feinstein told the Senate that her amendment would restore authority over derivatives contracts that had been taken from the Commodities Futures Trading Commission by the Commodities Futures Modernization Act (CFMA) of 2000. She pointed to the extraordinarily high level of speculation in energy: ASbout 90% of energy trades never result in actual delivery of a product, she said. They are purely financial transactions and because of that, "A giant loophole has opened up where there is no transparency, no records, and no oversight."
Senator Phil Gramm (R-Texas), a long-time advocate of financial derivatives, recipient of large Enron contributions, and a man whose wife, Wendy Gramm, was, in the early 1990s, chair of the CFTC--during which time she exempted the company's energy-swap operations from government oversight, after which she joined Enron's board of directors--argued that Feinstein's amendment was unnecessary, because the 2000 CFMA actually strengthened the CFTC's authority. He claimed derivative swaps "are tailored transactions ... that are able ... to provide greater certainty in providing jobs, growth, and opportunity for the American economy." He produced a letter signed by Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan and Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill to buttress his claim that the "derivatives markets may very well be a major factor in the resilience of the American economy, today, and why we, in fact, did not have a recession."
When Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) asked Gramm about the 1998 collapse of the Long Term Capital Management hedge fund, and the fact that it nearly brought down the entire financial system, Gramm replied that LTCM went broke "by making bad decisions," not because of derivatives. Gramm further lied that derivatives trading in natural gas and electricity had nothing to do with the spike in electricity prices in California in early 2001.
The backers of the Feinstein amendment failed to break the logjam created by Gramm's opposition, losing a cloture vote April 10 by 48 to 50, a loss which prompted Feinstein to withdraw it. Before the vote Sen. Jon Corzine (D-N.J.) told the Senate that the amendment "brings fairly straightforward oversight functions that are typical in every financial market."
On the Republican side, Senators Peter Fitzgerald (R-Ill.), who was a co-sponsor of the amendment, and John McCain (R-Ariz.) joined with the Democrats in supporting the measure.
D.C. Public Hospital Sacrificed for Olympic Sports Complex
Organizers of the Washington, D.C. bid for the 2012 Summer Olympics are moving more of the projected Olympic events into a "multidimensional central Olympic Park" around the site of RFK Stadium, along the Anacostia River. The location sits just north of the now nearly abandoned D.C. General Hospital campus, shut down last year despite wide public protest. According to the Washington Post April 11, the plan envisions an "Olympic Sports Complex ... in a festive enclave lined with promenades and parks."
While the maps and site proposal published in the Post do not show the Olympic complex extending into the hospital land, the D.C. government has just come up with a "draft master plan" which definitely eliminates what had been the only public hospital in the nation's capital providing full services for indigent and uninsured poor people of Washington.
As a recent article in EIR showed, the land on which D.C. General sits, was always intended for hospital use, going back to the original design of the city, drawn up under President George Washington's supervision. Under the National Historical Preservation Act, passed by Congress in 1966, Federal (and District) officials are required to consider the historical uses and significance of any Federal property before transferring it or changing its use. D.C. officials may be in for some surprises on this one.
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