Larouche Online Almanac

Published: Monday, Jan. 27, 2003

Today is:

Need to Know This Week

The Lights Dim; The Curtain Begins To Rise

Less than three months ago, the talk was of a major Republican electoral victory, led by a highly popular Republican President. Now, all that is evaporating.

One credible report has it that Bush's political technician Karl Rove recently hit the panic button, after reviewing disastrous poll numbers, which showed a rapid collapse in support for the Iraq

war, and a growing sense that Bush was fixated on Iraq—to the point of ignoring other crises, including, first and foremost, the economic collapse.

Rove said Bush must get Iraq behind him fast, to refocus on other problems, or he will lose the 2004 elections. The self-deluded President hopes to do this through a quick war in the near-term, followed by an easy victory. Notwithstanding this, the war can still be successfully stalled by the new Eurasian combination of France, Germany, China, and Russia, along with the institutions of the American Presidency, military and civilian, which have been instrumental in delaying it over the past months.

But the only way the drift towards war can actually be stopped, is through a reversal of economic and financial policy.

The economic reality of which Karl Rove got a glimpse, through the prism of electoral calculations, was summed up as follows by EIR founder Lyndon LaRouche, in the course of an address at Jaipur University in India, on Jan 21.
...more

CURRENT SUBSCRIBERS:
    LOG IN HERE, OR USE THE LINKS BELOW, TO ACCESS THIS ISSUE.
Economic reports

U.S. Economic News

World Economic News

World and Nation-state

United States

Ibero-America

Europe

Russia and Eurasia

Middle-East

Asia

Africa


this week in history

January 27-February 2

This week it seems appropriate to review a historical event that occurred in January of 1943: specifically, the Casablanca Conference between U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. This conference, which included a rotating cast of military and civilian visitors, lasted from Jan. 11 to Jan. 24. This was a fateful conference in more ways than one, particularly in that it resulted in the decision of the Allies to make their first invasion of the Nazi-held continent of Europe by opening up the Southern Front through Italy, rather than pursuing the cross-Channel assault, which was then delayed for more than a year (until D-Day). But our reason for dealing with it here, is a different one.

Already, by August 1941, it had become clear that Roosevelt and Churchill had different visions as to what the postwar world would look like. We rely here heavily on the small 1946 memoir, As He Saw It, by FDR's son Elliott Roosevelt, who attended some of the major pow-wows during the war with his father. According to Elliott, the meeting which framed the Atlantic Charter, a meeting held in Argentia, Newfoundland, featured a significant confrontation between the two world leaders over whether "18th-Century methods," the phrase FDR used to describe the imperial methods of the British Empire, would be permitted to continue after the war.

The same debate continued at Casablanca, according to Elliott. Today, as a gang of would-be imperialists counsel the President to follow down the road to an American Empire, we would do well to recall this discussion, and take lessons from what FDR had to say.

The Casablanca conference being FDR's only trip to Africa, a land colonized by a variety of European nations, FDR took the opportunity both to visit certain regions, and to speak with some of the local leadership. Two events are instructive. First, he told Elliott about a stop he made in Gambia, a small strip of land owned by the British Empire. FDR was appalled at the state of the "natives," their low wages, their very high mortality rate. "Life expectancy—you'd never guess what it is," he said to Elliott. "Twenty-six years. Those people are treated worse than the livestock. Their cattle live longer!" This observation, the President told his son, underscored his determination that such colonialism had to end.

This was not an isolated observation. A couple of days later, FDR was lunching with friends and began to expatiate on the kind of development which would be possible in Africa. He reminded Elliott and his guests that there were underground rivers in Africa. "Divert this water flow for irrigation purposes? It'd make Imperial Valley in California look like a cabbage patch! And the salt flats: They were below the level of the Mediterranean; you could dig a canal staight back to re-create that lake—one hundred and fifty miles long, sixty miles wide. The Sahara would bloom for hundreds of miles!"

"Wealth!," he cried. "Imperialists don't realize what they can do, what they can create! They've robbed this continent of billions, and all because they were too short-sighted to understand that their billions were pennies, compared to the possibilities! Possibilities that must include a better life for the people who inhabit this land...."

The second singular event was FDR's invitation to the Sultan of Morocco for dinner, an event to which Churchill was also invited. Elliott describes it this way:

"...[A]s the conversation proceeded, Churchill grew more and more disgruntled. What was the trouble? Father and the Sultan were animatedly chatting about the wealth of natural resources in French Morocco, and the rich possibilities for their development. They were having a delightful time, their French—not Mr. Churchill's strongest language—easily encompassing the question of the elevation of the living standards of the Moroccans and—the point—of how this would of necessity entail an important part of the country's wealth being retained within its own boundaries."

Eventually, FDR brought up the potential of oil deposits in French Morocco. The Sultan, while happy, deplored the country's lack of trained scientists and engineers, to which FDR responded that "Moroccan engineers and scientists could of course be educated and trained under some sort of reciprocal educational programs with, for instance, some of our leading universities in the United States." He went on to present the idea of the Moroccans using American firms, but maintaining considerable control of their resources, obtaining the major part of the income stream, and eventually taking them over.
...more

LaRouches Return to India
Lyndon and Helga Zepp LaRouche visited India Jan. 10-22, where they met many old and new friends. In addition to the 170 members of the faculty and students at the Federation of Rajasthan University in Jaipur, LaRouche gave public addresses to the Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Institute in Calcutta; faculty and students at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi; the Institute of Economic Growth, a government thinktank at Delhi University; and an extremely lively meeting of officials, professors, lawyers, and other policy-makers in New Delhi.

In Depth Coverage From Executive Intelligence Review
Links to articles from Executive Intelligence Review*.
*Requires Adobe Reader®.


Feature:
MOBILIZATION AGAINST IRAQ WAR

'War Over Iraq War' Hangs On Two State of Union Speeches
by Mark Burdman
The crucial dates, Jan. 27-28, arrive with two diametrically opposed mobilizations escalating over war with Iraq. The horror of what such a war would mean has unleashed tremendous opposition around the world, far broader and more determined than at the time of the September 2002 UN session.

German Moves Against Iraq War Intensify
by Rainer Apel
It comes late, but the vast majority of the German nation hopes it will not be too late: an unprecedented escalation of the Schro¨der government's diplomatic moves to stop a war on Iraq.

The Elyse´e Treaty Is A New Opportunity
This statement by Helga Zepp-LaRouche was circulated by her Civil Rights Movement Solidarity (Bu¨So) party in Germany, and the allied Solidarite´ et Progre`s party in France, in observances of the 40th anniversary of the Franco-German Elyse´e Treaty.

Anglo-Americans Boast of `New Empire' Drive
by Mark Burdman
As 2003 began, leading circles in both the American and British establishments were aggressively promoting a solution worse than the global economic disease: a 'new imperialism,' with an 'American Empire' taking over the role formerly played by Great Britain and other doomed empires of the past.

Pope John Paul: 'War Is Not Inevitable'
by Claudio Celani
True world leaders today state that war is not inevitable, as do Lyndon LaRouche and his collaborator Amelia Boynton Robinson. Such a true world leader is, of course, Pope John Paul II, who is seen worldwide as the highest moral authority opposing not only the war against Iraq, but also the very idea of a 'preventive war.'

  • San Marino Salutes Pope, LaRouche
    In their New Year's address, the Captains Regent of the Republic of San Marino greeted Pope John Paul II's message for World Peace Day, Jan. 1, and pointed to the November 2002 visit of Lyndon LaRouche to San Marino as an opportunity to deepen the economic and social aspects of the Pope's teachings.

Economics:

IMF Blinks in Argentina Showdown, All Eyes on Brazil
by Cynthia R. Rush
After almost a year of negotiations with Argentina, the International Monetary Fund announced on Jan. 16 that it had decided to grant a 'transitional' agreement to that government—not to include any fresh funds, but to simply roll over the $6.6 billion it has coming due through August of this year (plus another $5 billion already paid in 2002).

LaRouche Youth Are Changing the Rules As State Capitals Face Economic Crisis
by Paul Gallagher
The 50-year record budget catastrophes and cuts ravaging every American state's budget and economy, are now 'major media news' during the Winter legislative sessions of 2003.

California Reverses Electric Deregulation!
by Marsha Freeman
California's Public Utilities Commission (PUC) voted 5-0 on Jan. 16 to close the book on the state's disastrous 'experiment' of deregulating its electric utility industry, which began in April 1994.
(See p.9: Put the Toothpaste Back in the Tube! What Lyndon LaRouche said in 2001 on the California electricity price crisis.)

AIDS PlagueWon't Reach Peak for 40 More Years
by Colin Lowry
The AIDS epidemic is still increasing worldwide, and in Africa it threatens to literally wipe out entire nations. In December 2002, UNAIDS released their epidemic update, which estimates, that globally there are now 42 million people infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).

`Mass Murder by Complacency' A statement by UNAIDS envoy to Africa
Stephen Lewis
Discussing the Group of Seven countries' response to the AIDS pandemic, UNAIDS envoy to Africa Stephen Lewis insisted that 'those who watch the pandemic unfold witha kind of pathological equanimity must be held to account.

Botswana Case: AIDS CanWipe Out Nations
by Dr. Debra Hanania-Freeman
When statesman and economist Lyndon LaRouche, then seeking the Democratic Party Presidential nomination, first warned in 1985 that unless the U.S. government and the international health establishment acted swiftly, the AIDS epidemic carried the potential to threaten the human species' existence, almost no one agreed.

Debt, Deflation, and Depression
by John Hoefle
For years, many in the Establishment, and their poodles in the press, insisted, in response to the warnings of Lyndon LaRouche, that 'it can't happen here.' Their head-in-the-sand mindset echoed the wishful thinking of Yale economics professor Irving Fisher, who just days before the 1929 stockmarket crash, claimed that 'stock prices have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau.'

Southeast Asia Leaving IMF Restraints
by Michael Billington
Over the past weeks, several prominent Southeast Asian economists, business leaders, and government officials have expressed to EIR a newsense of optimism throughout the region.The Philippines, facing a severe social and economic crisis, is an exception.

`China's Emergence Brings Forth Optimism'
An interview with Dr. Sarasin Viraphol
Dr. Sarasin Viraphol is Executive Vice President of the CharoenPokphandGroupCo., Ltd., Bangkok, the largest agribusiness group in Thailand, and one of the largest foreign investors in China.

Poland: Slanders Aim At LaRouche's Influence
by Anna Kaczor
In its third issue of 2003, the Polish edition of Newsweek published a bizarre article about the work of the Schiller Institute in Poland. Igor Ryciak, who interviewed Lyndon LaRouche, said that his article was prompted by the growing influence of the Institute, and by the fact that many who are opponents of Poland joining the European Union under present conditions, quote Lyndon LaRouche's publications for their arguments.

Deep In Depression, Georgia Faces Elections
by Vladimir Kilasonia
Parliamentary elections are scheduled for Autumn 2003 in Georgia, the Caucasus Mountains country that figures prominently in military calculations about western Eurasia, as well as in energy geopolitics. Electioneering has already begun, against a backdrop of economic and social crisis.

International:

Will Sharon Become Israel's Ceausescu?
by Dean Andromidas
On the eve of Israel's Jan. 28 election, there were fears that a victory by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's Likud party could lead to the collapse of the democratic state in Israel.

Are Dirty Mega-Bucks Behind Sharon's Bid To Steal Israeli Elections?
by Scott Thompson and Jeffrey Steinberg
A small group of American and Canadian mega-billionaires, tied to organized crime and right-wing Zionist causes, has joined in the effort to steal the Jan. 28 Israeli elections, on behalf of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who is committed to drowning any Israel-Palestine peace process in a sea of blood.

Cambodia:
A Sovereign Tribunal To Try War Crimes
by Gail G. Billington
A statement released by the Cambodian government on Jan. 13 draws out the vivid irony that the United Nations, together with the leading Western powers, provided recognition and overt protection for the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime, throughout the 1980s and much of the 1990s, but in recent years, self-righteously accuses the Cambodian government of stalling and obstructing the commencement of a tribunal for those Khmer Rouge leaders who are still alive.

LaRouche's Voice Heard in Dominican Republic
by Valerie Rush
Leading policymakers in the Caribbean island-nation of the Dominican Republic seized the opportunity to start their new year by welcoming the ideas and programmatic proposals of U.S. statesman and economist Lyndon LaRouche to their shores.

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


All rights reserved © 2003 EIRNS

Subscribe to Electronic Intelligence Weekly

For all questions regarding your subscription to EIW, or questions or comments regarding the EIW website's contents or design, please contact eiw@larouchepub.com.

Phone: 1-888-EIR-3258